NEW YORK, Nov. 3, 2011 – Today, the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) and the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)announced a collaboration that will hasten the development of industry standards for managing cloud computing environments. Focusing on interoperability and ease of use, this relationship is expected to address one of the most pressing issues facing widespread computing today - the need for simplified cloud management through a single view of all cloud resources. Initial collaboration engagement will focus on one of today’s most pressing IT challenges, interoperable management of virtual machines regardless of data center location. Adoption of efficient cloud solutions is estimated to saveglobal IT operations budgets $25B, according to ODCA forecasts, and simplified cloud management is a critical aspect of achieving increased efficiencies.

The collaboration brings together the leading customer voice on cloud computing and the leading IT management standards organization. The Open Data Center Alliance, a group of 300+ companies that represent over $100B in annual IT spend, recently published the first customer driven requirements for the cloud with release of its initial usage models. As the global industry organization leading the development, adoption, validation and promotion of interoperable systems management standards, DMTF enables more effective management of millions of IT systems worldwide.

The collaborative work of these organizations will initially foster transparent management of virtual machines regardless of virtual machine manager or data center location and is expected to create a simplified path to cloud workload migration. With virtual machine management estimated to represent 60% of the IT overhead of a physical server, simplified management across enterprise and public cloud implementations represents a major opportunity for increased operational efficiency.

“Transparent oversight to include security, financials, and performance of cloud workloads across a federated cloud environment is critical to broad adoption of cloud computing,” said Curt Aubley, Lockheed Martin vice president and chief technology officer for Cyber Security & NexGen Innovation. “Working with DMTF enables our members to work hand in hand with some of the world’s experts in data center management. DMTF and industry wide collaboration will accelerate industry delivery of solutions that meet customer requirements and open up enormous opportunities for operational efficiency for IT organizations to deliver business outcomes for success.”

By matching specific customer requirements with targeted specification delivery, the two organizations hope to accelerate delivery of industry standard-based deployments. Initial collaboration is focused on enhancements to the DMTF OVF specification, which was recently adopted as an international standard by the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Improvements to the specification willaddress specific requirements dictated in the ODCA’s VM Interoperability usage model. The organizations have also begun investigating industry standard approaches to software licensing within cloud environments, another critical opportunity to accelerate broad cloud application deployments.

“DMTF is pleased to be collaborating with the ODCA to accelerate industry adoption of interoperable cloud standards,” said Winston Bumpus, DMTF President. “We believe this collaboration will help define customer requirements in the cloud space and ensure that our key standards, such as OVF, are widely accepted throughout the IT industry. By combining DMTF’s knowledge in systems management standards with ODCA’s expertise in customer-driven usage models, we have a unique opportunity to ensure that the standards we develop, like our  work-in-progress cloud infrastructure management interface (CIMI) specifications, will meet customer needs.”

The two organizations anticipate this collaboration will yield both new publications from both organizations as well as enhancements to existing publications. To learn more about the collaboration and the organizations visit www.opendatacenteralliance.orgor www.dmtf.org.

About The Open Data Center Alliance

The Open Data Center Alliance^℠ is an independent IT consortium comprised of global IT leaders who have come together to provide a unified customer vision for long-term data center requirements. The ODCA is led by a Board of Directors with representatives from such IT leaders as BMW, Capgemini, China Life, China Unicom, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank, Terremark, Disney Technology Solutions and Services, and UBS. Intel serves as  technical advisor to ODCA.

In support of its mission, the ODCA has delivered the first customer requirements for cloud computing documented in eight Open Data Center Usage Models which identify member prioritized requirements to resolve the most pressing challenges facing cloud adoption. Find out more at www.opendatacenteralliance.org.

About the Distributed Management Task Force
DMTF enables more effective management of millions of IT systems worldwide by bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on the development, validation and promotion of systems management standards. The group spans the industry with 160 member companies and organizations, and more than 4,000 active participants crossing 43 countries. The DMTF board of directors is led by 15 innovative, industry-leading technology companies. They include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); Broadcom Corporation; CA Technologies.; Cisco; Citrix Systems, Inc.; EMC; Fujitsu; HP; Huawei; IBM; Intel Corporation; Microsoft Corporation; Oracle; Red Hat and VMware, Inc. With this deep and broad reach, DMTF creates standards that enable interoperable IT management. DMTF management standards are critical to enabling management interoperability among multi-vendor systems, tools and solutions within the enterprise. Information about DMTF technologies and activities can be found at http://www.dmtf.org.