DMTF Newsletter 2010

Management Matters, March 2010	Page 2

Welcome New Members

Stay Updated on More DMTF Activities with Sharing Groups

DMTF working groups, committees and subcommittees are constantly tackling new projects and initiatives. This flurry of activity can make it challenging for members to keep track of what each group is doing. To complicate matters, much of the information pertaining to individual groups is accessible only by that group's members.

The DMTF sharing groups address these issues by providing members with more access to those groups in which they do not directly participate. There are currently two sharing groups: the Leadership Sharing Group and the Sharing Group.

The Leadership Sharing Group is:

Open to all Board and Leadership level members.
Allows access to consolidated views of all documents, calendars, ballots and e-mail for all working groups, subcommittees and committees.

The Sharing Group is:

Open to all participating level members.
Allows access to consolidated views of documents, calendars, ballots, and email for working groups.

It should be noted that Forum information will still be restricted to Forum members.

This project doesn't provide access to any content a user wouldn't normally be able to see had they joined a particular group. Rather, this allows project participants to join a single sharing group to gain access to all other groups they could have joined, without being individually added to each group roster.

These sharing groups are an ideal solution for members trying to stay current on recent DMTF activities while keeping up with their own busy schedules. DMTF members belonging to Board or Leadership level companies can access the Leadership Sharing Group here. DMTF members belonging to Participation level companies can access the Sharing Group here.

For more information on these groups or if you are interested in joining, please contact Kes Wold.

DMTF Completes OVF 1.1 Specification, Submits for ANSI/ISO Standardization

DMTF has been very busy extending and refining the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) specification during the past few months. The organization recently completed version 1.1 of the specification and has submitted it for consideration as an ANSI and ISO standard.

Originally proposed in September 2007, the OVF specification describes an open, secure, portable, efficient and extensible format for the packaging and distribution of software to run virtual machines. There are several new components that differentiate the OVF 1.1 specification from the original version, including:

Capability for file system-based images to increase flexibility at deployment time
A property attribute to hide password values at the user interface
Joliet extensions for ISO transport image
Clarification of how the OVF manifest contain entries for individual file chunks
Clarification of the referencing of manifest and certificate files from descriptor

DMTF has also submitted OVF to the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) "Fast-Track" process to develop it as an American National Standard at American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Once it is approved as an ANSI standard, OVF will be submitted to the International Standards Organization (ISO) for consideration as an international standardization.

This is an important milestone for DMTF that helps the organization maintain its position as a leading standards body. As part of the international verification process, the specification will be put through a number of tests to ensure it meets a complex system of checks and balances of reviews before it is adopted as an American and International standard. It must be reviewed by each of the above mentioned organizations independently to achieve adoption.

DMTF will be tracking the OVF specification as it makes its way toward becoming a national standard and then an international standard.

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