2022 Year-in-Review

Posted on Tue, 12/13/2022 - 09:46

From the desk of DMTF President Jeff Hilland

Each December, we take the opportunity to pause and reflect on the last twelve months. 2022 has been a busy year for our volunteers and the organization. Together, we have accomplished several milestones and have much to be proud of. I’m pleased to highlight the significant accomplishments the organization has achieved. 
 
Technical Milestones
 
Redfish
Technical work on the Redfish® standard takes place in the Redfish Forum. The Forum has made significant progress this year, including:

  • We kicked off 2022 with the Redfish Release 2021.4 in January. This release of the Redfish standard included four new schemas, 29 schema updates and additional developer resources. Key highlights of the Redfish 2021.4 release are the addition of ComponentIntegrity, RegisteredClient, and ServiceConditions schemas. The new Component Integrity Model allows resources to represent security related information between two entities (typically a BMC and end device); the RegisteredClient resource collection enables clients to be aware of other clients to avoid configuration conflicts when desired; and the ServiceConditions resource provides a roll up of all active, non-normal status conditions that require attention. These latest enhancements are driven by the growth of Redfish and interoperability feedback received from implementers and our work with Alliance Partners.
  • Redfish version 2022.1 was released in June. The new release added of SSH key related properties, addition of properties in Chassis to represent containment of power and thermal relationships, and a method to register an existing system as a resource block in support of system composability. It also included 34 schema updates and a new developer resource, the Redfish Message Registry Guide. Want to learn more? Check out the 2022.1 webinar here!
  • Continuing its aggressive development of the standard, Redfish version 2022.2 was released in September. The release included 27 schema updates and a new Sensor message registry that defines general events from the Sensor model. Key highlights of the release were the addition of ResetToDefaults action to various resources, support for clients to create EthernetInterface resources to represent VPNs, added manager network port information, added a new SecurityPolicy resource, and added a new TrustedComponent resource.
  • Redfish 2022.3 will be released next year. Stay tuned for release details and accompanying webinars! 

PMCI Efforts
The Platform Management Communications Infrastructure (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 2022:

  • In August, an updated WIP was released for MCTP 2.0 highlighting reliable and non-reliable transport modes, support of a vastly larger number of devices, support for more outstanding messages, larger packets and built in secure messages. 
  • Also in August, the Working Group published an overview presentation, which shared its goals and approach to a common and extensible format for the Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) Data Model Schema. This Work in Progress (WIP) presentation lists the set of planned features while describing the benefits this new data model will provide. 
  • NC-SI released its latest WIP on DSP0222 in September. NC-SI 1.2 is slated to be released in 2023.
  • PLDM for Firmware Update 1.2 was also released in September. This minor release added support for Opaque data and security features.
  • PMCI Tools Task Force released their work this year including an update to the PMCI Architecture White Paper (DSP2015) in April and then the Test Tool Interface and Design specification (DSP0280) in October. 
  • As the work of PMCI continues to grow, the need for education material has also increased. In January, DMTF published a PMCI Tech Note designed to answer questions with an overview of the PMCI architecture and the benefits of each standard. The following standards are highlighted in the Tech Note -- Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP), Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI), Platform Level Data Model (PLDM), and Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM). Each standard is explained at a high level while providing the benefits of each one.    
  • The Working Group is also submitting several PMCI standards to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for certification. Click here for DMTF submissions, status, and ANSI/ISO identifier. 

SPDM 
DMTF’s SPDM Working Group is responsible for the SPDM standard. This standard enables authentication, attestation and key exchange to assist in providing infrastructure security enablement. 

  • Kicking off the new year, DMTF announced the release of its Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM) Specification 1.2.0.
  • Also in January, the organization announced that the SPDM specifications have garnered industry-wide support and are actively helping to solve customer and end user concerns with a standardized platform security protocol. By using SPDM, management traffic inside the box over MCTP can be encrypted. This allows management data inside the platform to be encrypted, like TLS/HTTPS encrypts your traffic over the Internet. Click here to read the press release and industry support. 
  • In August, DMTF announced that the SPDM Working Group now reports directly to the Technical Committee. Formerly a task force under the PMCI Working Group, the group’s work has increased in scope, industry support and interest. This change will help with industry alignment and allow the working group to work more closely with other DMTF groups and Alliance Partners.
  • In October, the SPDM Code Task Force released its latest open source release of libspdm version 2.2.0, which is conformant with DSP0274 1.0.1, 1.1.2 and 1.2.1, and is now available for download. 
  • Did you know that the SPDM working group now has its own web page where you can find information regarding upcoming deliverables, Work in Progress, status of specifications, and more? Click here to learn about the SPDM Working Group and the standards it defines. 

The Security Response Task Force (SRTF)

  • In June, DMTF launched a Security Response Task Force (SRTF) within the organization’s Technical Committee (TC). The Task Force, under the direction of the TC, will be responsible for the coordination and management of reported security issues or vulnerabilities related to DMTF standards or DMTF open-source sample implementations.  

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.

  • In August, the SMBIOS Working Group released Version 3.6 of the SMBIOS Reference Specification. Version 3.6 of SMBIOS adds support or updates for current technologies, including: LoongArch and ARMv9 processors, HBM3 memory, and enhanced multi-threading reporting.

CIM

  • In March CIM 2.54.1 was released. This update includes several enhancements and additions throughout the Schema such as ongoing improvements to support products, alliance partners, and DMTF Profiles and Management Initiatives.
  • The CIM Forum anticipates the release of CIM 2.55 in the first quarter of 2023.  

DASH

Alliances
Our Alliance Partner program continues to benefit the industry overall. 

  • In July, DMTF held its annual summer event, the 2022 Alliance Partner Technical Symposium (APTS). Co-hosted with our alliance partner, Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), the fifteenth annual APTS was held on Monday, July 25 through Friday, July 29, 2022. It was a hybrid event, with the option to attend in person in Portland, Oregon or to attend virtually. Led by DMTF's VP of Alliances John Leung, the event featured collaborative working group meetings -- focused on technical topics of interest to DMTF’s Alliance Partners as well as symposium keynote addresses from the CXL Consortium, PCI-SIG, and SNIA.
  • Also in July, DMTF and the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) strengthened its Work Register to include a new level of cooperation between the two standards bodies. This alliance centered particularly around SPDM will also include Redfish support for TCG standards. This updated Work Register now allows for cooperation prior to the release of specifications, ensuring better synergy between the organizations. 
  • In October, DMTF and the Open Infrastructure Foundation (OpenInfra Foundation) agreed to a new work register, outlining areas of technical collaboration between the two organizations. As part of its agreement with DMTF, some of OpenInfra Foundation's projects, including OpenStack, Airship and StarlingX, use Redfish either directly or via Ironic and Sushy. The goals of the alliance are to develop Profile files for applicable OpenInfra Foundation projects to prescribe their manageability support requirements.

Education and Events
DMTF continued its dedication to industry outreach and education with updated educational materials, YouTube videos, and attendance at several industry events. 

  • In January, DMTF President Jeff Hilland presented an overview of the organization while highlighting the benefits of being a member on DMTF’s YouTube channel. Click here to view the presentation. 
  • The organization’s “Redfish School” YouTube series continues to be popular with viewers. In March, we published a new tutorial video focused on SmartNICs with Redfish. In September, SPDM released tutorials on SPDM 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 Specifications. Stay tuned for more videos in 2023! 
  • Have you attended a Redfish release webinar? Ongoing support to implementors of the Redfish standard, the Redfish Forum webinar series is timed with each release of the standard. Attendees are invited to join a live webinar, hosted via Zoom, where the Forum chairs present the contents of the latest release followed by a Q&A session. Each webinar is then added to our YouTube channel for those that can’t attend or would like to revisit the information. 
  • DMTF specifications can be found in millions of products, but most people have no idea which products support our standards. DMTF has created a webpage where companies can showcase which standards they have adopted or implemented. 
  • DMTF executives, technology representatives and standards were highlighted in several events:
  • Did you know DMTF’s Education area offers visitors direct navigation and access to new materials? It highlights the latest educational information and featured resources and provides visitors with a broad collection of information and most recent materials. The landing page showcases key resources, which change on a regular basis, and visitors will also find pages for Presentations, White Papers and Webinars – all of which update automatically when DMTF shares new content. In addition, there are pages for Open Source information and Newsletter sign-up. 


Final Thoughts
Together we continued to focus on the work of creating meaningful standards that address industry needs and solve challenges for the end user. We are proud of our valued volunteers and hope each of them takes a moment to reflect on what we’ve accomplished - without their hard work, none of it would be possible. We would be remiss if we didn’t recognize our alliance partners as well. Our close collaboration with SNIA, OFA, OCP, TCG, CXL Consortium and others allows us to create standards within the platform (PMCI, SMBIOS, SPDM) as well as communication between the platform and management clients (Redfish, CIM). We value all our industry and organizational relationships.
 
Looking ahead to 2023, we want to thank our member companies, volunteers, as well as our alliance and industry partners for their ongoing commitment to the organization. As always, thank you for the continued hard work and dedication.