| IT vendors draft common
terminology
16 August, 2006
By Paul Weinberg
Pressures on corporate IT within the enterprise to reduce
costs is driving the current effort by leading IT vendors
to establish common XML based terminology to describe computer
devices, stated Warren Shiau, the lead analyst in IT research
at the Strategic Counsel.
"They are seeing that it is pretty impossible to drive
basic efficiency in the IT infrastructure unless you have
standardization of this sort," he explained.
"Analysts are estimating between 70 and 80 per cent
of the current IT budgets is just going to maintaining what
they have, which leaves very little left over for responding
to new opportunities for investing in the future," stated
Ed Anderson, the marketing director for Dynamic Systems Initiative
at Microsoft.
Microsoft is part of a consortium of vendors that participated
in the drafting of specifications for a standard service modeling
language (SML) to cover computer networks, applications, servers,
routers and other resources within the IT environment.
Among the vendors engaged in the formulation of SML are Microsoft,
IBM, BEA, BMC, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and
Sun.
A Microsoft press release indicated that the SML "allows
developers to build modeling information for applications,
devices and services that can used during all stages of the
application or service life cycle such as configuration, problem,
change, and release management." In addition, the specification
will also be "useful for tactical processes such as management
of service levels, availability and capacity."
Anderson expected that the rest of the IT industry will also
support SML. "While this group doesn't constitute every
IT company, certainly we expect that many others are going
to participate, in this going forward."
SML based development and management tools that rely on a
consistent terms to describe different devices and applications
will assist IT managers in reducing interoperability, stated
Anderson.
Anderson described SML as a "pathway" for more
intelligent, self-managing and automated IT services.
"I think that [SML] addresses a pretty key customer
requirement these days, which is to take complex environments
and start to build on technology foundations that are going
to add simplicity, as opposed to increased complexity."
Furthermore, continued Anderson, "this is a customer
driven initiative. Customers have been asking all of us to
work better together."
The next step for the consortium is to submit the draft proposal
for SML to a standards organization, of which there are three
possible candidates, W3C, Oasis and DMTF.
"We haven't selected a specific organization. We are
trying to figure out where the best needs lie," Anderson
explained.
Both Microsoft and IBM had separately been working on a common
descriptive language strategy, but they decided subsequently
early this year that it was in their best collective interest
to engage in a cross-industry effort, stated Ric Telford,
vice president of autonomic computing at IBM.
"There was no disagreement about what we needed to deliver,
and it was just a matter of what is the best way to [publish]
a first class specification."
Although it might take some time for SML to get the official
green light from a standards body, Microsoft and IBM are introducing
shortly management, operational and development tools based
on the current SML specifications.
"We have some things coming out prior to standardization,"
stated Telford. "Each member of the working group has
its own roadmap [for SML] going forward."
The introduction of SML and the announcement that both Microsoft
and IBM will soon be introducing SML tools prior to formal
approval by a standards body is being described as positive
by Shiau.
"This is fairly important, something that people will
not immediately pick out for headlines, but in terms of the
impact on day to day IT operating costs, this could be very
significant."
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