DMTF Works on Open Cloud Standards

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), the organization bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on systems management standards development, validation, promotion and adoption, today announced that it has formed a group dedicated to addressing the need for open management standards for cloud computing. The "Open Cloud Standards Incubator" will work to develop a set of informational specifications for cloud resource management.

As virtualization technology continues to be more rapidly adopted, it is emerging as a common enabling foundation for delivering software solutions into IT environments along with the potential to lower IT costs and improve operational efficiencies. While deploying virtualization technologies it is also critical to have comprehensive management capabilities associated with the implementation. Along with the adoption of virtualization, more and more enterprise IT customers are looking at the cloud computing paradigm to better deliver services to their customers.

No specific standards currently exist for enabling interoperability between private clouds within enterprises and hosted or public cloud providers. DMTF's Open Cloud Standards Incubator will focus on addressing these issues by developing cloud resource management protocols, packaging formats and security mechanisms to facilitate interoperability.

"Cloud computing will have a major impact on IT management," said Winston Bumpus, DMTF president. "With the DMTF's track record for leading the industry in the development of proven standards for management interoperability, along with its extensive network of Alliance Partners, this Open Cloud Standards Incubator provides an ideal setting for initiating work on specifications to enable interoperable cloud management."

Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)