Continuing its aggressive development schedule, DMTF’s recently announced Platform Management Components Intercommunication (PMCI) Security Task Force has published architecture details for its forthcoming security specification.  

The specification for additional security for PMCI standards and protocols has a goal of aligning component authentication and integrity objects across the industry, and is being designed to be referenced by other standards organizations. In this new architecture presentation, now available for download, details of the specification’s guiding principles are outlined, which include using DMTF’s Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) message type 5 format for all authentication commands; and using MCTP message type 6 for future secured transport of encapsulated MCTP messages, as appropriate. 

The PMCI Security Task Force is part of the PMCI Working Group, which – in addition to MCTP – also develops the Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) and Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) specifications. These “inside the box” communication interfaces provide a comprehensive, common architecture for improved communication between management subsystem components.

DMTF members are encouraged to join the PMCI Working Group and help shape these expedited security deliverables by visiting the PMCI Working Group’s private workspace. Non-members who would like to join the DMTF to contribute can learn more here: https://www.dmtf.org/join.

For more information about the PMCI Working Group and the platform management standards it defines, please visit https://www.dmtf.org/standards/pmci.