Special Features:

INTEL, MS, SUN, OTHERS DRIVE WEB SERVICES SPECIFICATION

AMD, Dell, Intel Corp, Microsoft Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc announced the publication of Web Services Management (WS-Management), a Web services specification that addresses the cost and complexity of IT management by providing a common way for systems to access and exchange management information across their entire IT systems.

By using Web services to manage IT systems, deployments that support WS- Management will enable IT managers to remotely access devices on their networks, regardless of whether the systems are just out of the box, powered down or otherwise unavailable. Further, WS-Management supports a full spectrum of usage scenarios. These include the management of everything from silicon components and handheld devices to PCs, servers and large-scale datacenters. WS-Management provides a valuable foundation for the next generation of management applications because of the breadth of functionality it supports combined with its ability to take advantage of the rich security, reliability and transactional features of WS-*, the Web services architecture. "Web services are the preferred architecture for building the next generation of application protocols," said David Mendlen, director of Web services at Microsoft. "With this specification, management is now a core part of the Web services world and no longer an afterthought or just something that takes place in the datacenter. This is an important step for IT managers who have been looking for management systems to fully take advantage of the inherent interoperability that Web services provide."

"Providing the industry and our customers with a solid, open-standards-based management model demonstrates Intel's commitment to Web services and to system management," said Colin Evans, director of the System Software Lab at Intel. "Reducing IT system complexity through streamlined system management will help our customers run their businesses more efficiently, and we are committed to provide them with the specifications and technology to do that."

Microsoft plans to support WS-Management in the next release of Microsoft Windows Server and the next release of Microsoft Operations Manager. Intel plans to support WS-Management in its platform building blocks and will announce specific plans at a future date.

With the goal of accelerating development and acceptance of a standard for Web Services-based systems management, the participating companies plan to present the specification to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) membership, recognizing the DMTF's history of leadership in developing practical management standards based on Web technologies.

WS-Management, which was originally known as WMX, was first demonstrated at the WinHEC 2004 conference in Seattle.

Broad Industry Support

Intel

"WS-Management is a natural component of the Intel Cross-Platform Manageability Program," said Lorie Wigle, marketing director for the Manageability Architecture & Products Division at Intel. "CPMP is our program to implement consistent manageability interfaces, features and protocols across Intel-based platforms from servers to notebooks."

Microsoft

"Today IT professionals spend valuable time and resources reactively managing their infrastructures and manually connecting tools. WS-Management is a major step toward a world of proactive IT management with broadly interoperable standards for the exchange of management data," said David Hamilton, director of the Windows and Enterprise Management Division at Microsoft. "WS- Management extends Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative vision of delivering integrated, self-managed systems to encompass hardware and heterogeneous environments."

Sun

"Our customers are asking us to drive industry standards to improve datacenter efficiency and interoperability," said Sohrab Modi, general manager for N1 Grid Systems at Sun Microsystems. "Management using Web services richly enables multivendor interoperability among management systems, managed hardware and software resources. WS-Management extends the compatibility of Sun's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL)-certified systems to Microsoft management solutions. In addition, it extends Sun's N1 Grid System delivery of optimized business services and infrastructure in accordance with dynamic business demands and IT requirements."