2019 Year-in-Review - From the Desk of DMTF President Jeff Hilland

Posted on Mon, 12/09/2019 - 10:48

Every December, we take the opportunity to pause and reflect on the last twelve months. As another highly productive year comes to a close, I’m proud to highlight the significant accomplishments the organization achieved in 2019. We appreciate the hard work of our members who have helped the organization reach the following milestones. 
 
Technical Milestones:
CIM
DMTF continued to provide a steady cadence of updates to the Common Information Model (CIM):

  • DMTF published three CIM Schema releases including the latest release of the CIM Schema, version 2.52. This is the fifty-second update to CIM since the launch of 2.0.
  • The group formerly known as System Management Forum became the CIM Forum. As part of this restructuring, all work on the Common Information Model (CIM) has been consolidated under this single umbrella for increased efficiency. 

DASH

PMCI Working Group Standards
The Platform Management Components Intercommunication (PMCI) Working Group defines standards to address “inside the box” communication interfaces between the components of the platform management subsystem. Among the notable technical milestones in 2019:

  • The PLDM for Redfish Device Enablement Specification (RDE) was released as a Standard. This was preceded by several Work In Progress (WIP) releases to garner input from the industry. This standard enables a management controller to present Redfish-conformant management of I/O devices in a server, without the need for code specific to each device family/vendor/model.
  • Fulfilling its obligation to the industry, the SPDM Specification Release 0.99 was made available for public download as a Release Candidate while the final version goes through processing. The final 1.0 is expected to be released before the end of the 2019. While going through the development process, the Security Task Force of PMCI released a number of Work in Progress documents.
  • In May, the PMCI Security Task Force published architecture details for its forthcoming security specification, with the goal of aligning component authentication and integrity objects across the industry.
  • The PMCI Security Task Force published a WIP architecture presentation for their two new specifications, Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM) Specification (DSP0274) and SPDM over MCTP Binding Specification (DSP0275).
  • In June, the SPDM Specification, as well as the SPDM over MCTP Binding Specification, were released as a WIP. These specifications incorporate the input of the organization’s Alliance Partners to help align component authentication and integrity objects across the industry.
  • DMTF detailed the work in progress on its SPDM release 1.1 in a presentation available for download and public comment. Building on SPDM 1.0 standard protocols for device authentication, SPDM 1.1 defines secure session protocols using SIGMA protocol option and pre-shared secret option.
  • An updated PMCI Architecture White Paper was released in September. This white paper provides an overview of the PMCI workgroup and its goals, PMCI architecture, and a high level summary of the primary specifications which it creates. The paper also provides an overview on how the specifications relate to each other within the PMCI stack model.
  • PMCI Monitoring and Control, IDs and Codes all received refreshed releases. Additionally, we also worked on NC-SI changes needed for areas such as upcoming networking technologies.

Redfish
Technical work on the Redfish® standard takes place in the Redfish Forum. The Forum has made significant progress this year including: 

  • Redfish® version 2018.3 added interoperable management of certificates via the Redfish interface, with new schemas for CertificateService (which includes Properties and Actions to manage security certificates), CertificateLocations, and Certificate (with a description of each security certificate).  
  • Redfish version 2019.1 included 19 schema updates, revisions to the Redfish specification, and additional developer resources.
  • Continuing its aggressive development of Redfish, DMTF released updated WIP schemas for public review and comment in version 0.9a of the Redfish Data Center Equipment Model (DCIM). 
  • Redfish release 2019.2 added support for standardized push-style software updates – delivered in direct response to industry feedback.
  • The latest release of the Redfish standard, 2019.3, is now available for public download. The latest release of the standard includes 14 schema updates and features support for configuring SNMP or SMTP-based services and event delivery, which allow users to migrate additional legacy deployment tools and scripts to use Redfish (including the configuration of legacy functionality such as SNMP).
  • Be on the lookout for Redfish 2019.4 to be released shortly after the first of the year!

SMBIOS
System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) is one of the most widely used IT standards in the world, simplifying the management of more than two billion client and server systems since its release in 1995. 

Alliances:
Several official Alliance Partner work registers were established in 2019, and a few were revised to address new areas of interest.

  • DMTF and The Open Group extended their long-standing alliance for standards-based IT management. The new effort focuses on utilizing the Redfish standard for out-of-band management in the telemetry process automation space.
  • DMTF and the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG®) formed an alliance to help ensure the two organizations’ standards are coordinated and address management requirements, including security object definitions, schema definition, and JSON/OData interoperability, as well as management of devices using MCTP over PCIe. 
  • HDBaseT Alliance and DMTF agreed to a new work register. As part of its agreement, the organization plans to reference the security standards, protocols and flows as defined by SPDM specification.  
  • Our annual Alliance Partner Technical Symposium was held in July in Portland. The event was led by DMTF’s Vice President of Alliances, John Leung, and hosted in partnership with longstanding Alliance Partner SNIA. Members of the Redfish Forum also gathered for a plugfest around the Redfish standard. 
  • In October, DMTF and MIPI Alliance agreed to collaborate on SPDM standards. MIPI will evaluate and provide feedback on SPDM standards and use cases applicable to devices, which potentially could support MIPI security specifications.  

Education and Forum Events:
DMTF continued its dedication to industry outreach and education.

International Activity:
As part of its global outreach and standardization work, DMTF provides resources and information for users and developers worldwide. Our Regional Chapter in China and Regional Task Force in Japan each offer websites where visitors can access translated DMTF documents and specifications.

  • The  Japan Regional Task Force participated in the 28th annual Japan IT Week Spring in Tokyo. The group also hosted a joint presentation with representatives from SNIA. 
  • The China Chapter translated and published several key documents. For a complete list of translated documents from the China Chapter or Japan Task Force click here.  
  • Lydia Wang of Lenovo was appointed to serve as the new DMTF Vice President of Regional Chapters. This important role facilitates DMTF’s continued commitment to global standardization efforts, providing resources and information for users and developers worldwide. 

It has clearly been another banner year for DMTF! As we step into 2020, we thank you for your ongoing commitment to the work of the organization. I hope all of our members and valued volunteers take a moment to feel pride in these achievements – without you, none of it would be possible. Together, we are creating meaningful standards addressing industry needs and solving challenges for the end user. I look forward to our continued collaboration in the coming year. Thank you for your hard work and dedication – here’s to the year ahead!