Leading Industry Group is Developing a Common Architecture for Intercommunications among Enterprise Platform Submanagement Components for Desktop, Mobile, Thin Clients, Bladed PCs and Server Systems

PORTLAND, Ore. – July 25, 2007 – A leading industry group, the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF®), today released a new set of specifications for management subsystem communications and announced its plan to develop a comprehensive common architecture for intercommunications among management subsystem components.

The enhanced level of interoperability offered by the specifications will help give equipment and device manufacturers more flexibility in connecting platform components from different suppliers while lowering the cost of implementation and integration. IT customers in turn will gain by the greater availability of consistent and robust management capabilities across desktop, mobile and thin clients as well as bladed PCs and server platforms.

The DMTF, the industry organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable management initiatives and standards, today announced the formation of its Platform Management Component Intercommunications (PMCI) sub-team. Today the group released its Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP), a set of specifications that enable media-independent communications among different intelligent hardware components that are used to make up the platform hardware management subsystems of managed computer systems.

“The MCTP specifications are the first step in building a robust PMCI architecture that will give device manufacturers and equipment providers more flexibility while lowering cost of implementation and integration,” said Winston Bumpus, president, DMTF. “As a result of this enhanced interoperability, equipment manufacturers will be able to more easily link components from multiple suppliers.”

The DMTF’s work represents the first effort by an industry standards organization to define a comprehensive set of cross-platform specifications for “inside the box” platform communications and functional interfaces among component management subsystems. It will enable hardware and software developers, equipment providers and device manufacturers to quickly and economically develop and deploy management subsystems, by delivering the capability to readily link together devices from different vendors independent of operating system state and platform management subsystem implementation. Developers will gain more flexibility to choose different combinations and spend less time integrating components from multiple suppliers.

The goal of the PMCI Sub-team is to enable intercommunications among different types of platform components using a set of standard protocols, interfaces, and platform level data models across a full range of platforms—including traditional desktop systems, mobile, laptop and server computers, bladed PCs and thin clients. These enabling technologies are built upon the DMTF’s Common Information Model (CIM) profiles and remote access protocols as defined in other DMTF work groups.

The MCTP protocol, the first set of specifications from the DMTF’s recently formed PMCI Sub-team, covers the base transport protocol and bindings. During the first quarter of 2008, the group plans to release additional specifications that define a data model and messages for platform level monitoring and control and pass-through communications that are accomplished using MCTP as the transport protocol.

Interested parties can download the MCTP specification here or visit the DMTF web site for more information at: www.dmtf.org. Download a white paper about the PMCI architecture here.

About the DMTF
With more than 4,000 active participants representing 44 countries and nearly 200 organizations, the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF) is the industry organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable management standards and initiatives. DMTF management technologies are critical to enabling management interoperability among multi-vendor systems, tools, and solutions within the enterprise. By deploying solutions that support DMTF standards, IT managers can choose to deploy a mix of systems and solutions that best meet their users’ needs, while reducing management complexity and total cost of ownership. Information about the DMTF technologies and activities can be found at http://www.dmtf.org.

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