Every year in our December issue, we take the opportunity to pause and reflect on the last twelve months. As we wrap up another highly productive year for DMTF, I’m happy to highlight the vast list of accomplishments the organization achieved in 2018:

Technical Milestones

Redfish

Technical work on the Redfish^® standard takes place in DMTF's Redfish Forum (formerly known as the Scalable Platforms Management Forum, or SPMF), with significant progress this year including:

• In April, DMTF announced that its Redfish standard has been adopted and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as ISO/IEC 30115:2018. Redfish’s publication by ISO/IEC as an International standard for Information Technology is expected to further accelerate worldwide adoption and interoperability.
• Redfish 2018.1 was released in May, with additional schemas for LDAP/ActiveDirectory support, as well as Server Sent-Eventing (SSE), and more. As part of the Redfish 2018.1 release, DMTF also debuted its new Redfish Resource and Schema Guide – a human-readable guide to the Redfish Schema to help educate users of Redfish.
• In September, updated Redfish DCIM Schemas were released as version 0.8 of the Redfish Data Center Equipment (DCIM) Model. 
• Also in September, Redfish version 2018.2 was released, adding support for OpenAPI 3.0, as well as telemetry streaming and eventing, and improved event subscription methods. Redfish version 2018.3 is expected by year-end.

PMCI Working Group Standards

DMTF’s Platform Management Components Intercommunication (PMCI) Working Group defines standards to address “inside the box” communication interfaces between the components of the platform management subsystem. Among the notable technical milestones in 2018:

• DMTF released the new Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) for Redfish Device Enablement Specification in March as a Work in Progress. This standard enables a management controller to present Redfish-conformant management of I/O adapters in a server, without the need for code specific to each adapter family/vendor/model.
• In August, DMTF shared plans for the next version of the PLDM for Firmware Update Specification, offering new details in a public presentation that outlines the work underway.
• In Novmber, the Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI) 1.2.0 Specfication was released as a Work in Progress.
• Also this year, DMTF formed a new PMCI Security Task Force and published its plans and scope of work for aggressive development of a new PMCI security specification. 

CIM

DMTF continues to provide a steady cadence of updates to the Common Information Model (CIM):

• With the release of the CIM Schema, version 2.50 in January, DMTF marked an impressive milestone - fifty updates to CIM since the launch of 2.0.
• CIM 2.51 was also released in 2018, continuing to provide common definitions of management information for systems, networks, applications and services. 

SMBIOS

DMTF’s System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) is one of the most widely-used IT standards in the world, simplifying the management of more than two billion client and server systems since its release in 1995.

• In May, DMTF released Version 3.2 of the System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) Reference Specification, the latest update to the premier standard for delivering management information via system firmware. 

Alliances and Open Source

• New official work registers were established in 2018 with Broadband Forum (BBF), PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer Group (PICMG), MIPI Alliance, and The Gen-Z Consortium. In addition, a three-way alliance was announced in April with DMTF, NVM Express, Inc. and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).
• DMTF’s close relationship with the open source community continued in 2018, with active participation on DMTF’s external GitHub repository and additional open source tools provided for testing, validation, and other areas.

Education and Events

• DMTF greatly improved and expanded the Education area of its website this year, offering a showcase of the latest resources and direct links to the organization’s Presentations, White Papers, Webinars, Open Source information, and Newsletter sign-up. 
• The Redfish Developer Hub also received a major overhaul in 2018, with upgraded navigation and the addition of even more in-depth technical resources and education for developers.
• DMTF’s YouTube channel and the popular “Redfish School” series remained active this year, with new mini-tutorials explaining the use of Tasks, Events, and Advanced Communication Devices  in Redfish. For a big picture perspective, The Case for Redfish video explains the environment before the Redfish API was developed, why it was needed and how the standard has reinvented IT management. The organization also shared a new video in 2018 on the Benefits of DMTF Membership, with overview of the organization and its standards efforts, along with an examination of how technology standards help the industry at large.
• Continuing its high profile industry presence, this year DMTF once again co-hosted the Alliance Partner Technical Symposium (APTS), the site of some of the most important face-to-face technical work of the year. Other event activity included DMTF presenting and showcasing Redfish at the OCP U.S. Summit in March, presenting on the Redfish ecosystem at SNIA’s Storage Developer Conference, and exhibiting with Redfish at the SC18 conference in November. 

International Activity

• As part of its global outreach and standardization work, DMTF provides resources and information for users and developers worldwide. Our Regional Chapter in China and Regional Task Force in Japan each offer websites where visitors can access translated DMTF documents and specifications. In 2018, the Redfish Tech Note was translated into Chinese, and new Japanese subtitles were added to videos from DMTF’s popular “Redfish School” YouTube video series, including Redfish Model: Architecture; Introduction to CSDL; and CSDL Usage.
• DMTF’s Regional Chapter in China continues to post all DMTF video webinars on its Youku channel, providing accessibility to our Chinese audience.
• The organization continued to further its global presence with participation in numerous international events.  At Japan IT Week in May, DMTF presented and exhibited in the expo. DMTF also presented in Beijing, China at the Open Data Center Committee (ODCC) Summit in October, as well as at the China Cloud Computing Conference in December. In addition, the organization once again sponsored a mini-conference at the International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM) in Rome in November. 

It has clearly been a busy year for DMTF! I hope all of our members and valued volunteers take a moment to feel pride in these achievements – without you, none of it would be possible. Thank you for a highly successful 2018, and we have plans for much more to come in 2019.