LAS VEGAS, Nev. - May 4, 2009 - The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), the organization bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on systems management standards development, validation, promotion and adoption, today announced the formation of its Virtualization Management (VMAN) Forum, a group dedicated to promoting interoperability between products that support the VMAN standards. The forum will develop and conduct programs to determine specification conformance in the areas of system virtualization management, virtual system management, and the open virtualization format.

"DMTF is committed to enabling interoperable IT management solutions that use DMTF standards," said Winston Bumpus, DMTF president. "The creation of the VMAN Forum demonstrates our continued efforts to extend this commitment to virtualized environments, helping vendors develop more robust, interoperable solutions for deploying and managing virtual appliances and environments."

The VMAN Forum plans to develop a set of test tools for measuring conformance to the specifications included in DMTF's VMAN Initiative. These tools will allow DMTF members to confirm the conformance level of their products that implement DMTF virtualization management standards. The forum also plans to host plugfests to help identify interoperability issues among various implementations and validate conformance testing procedures.

"Standards-based management is a key enabler of virtualization technology," said Chris Wolf, a senior analyst with Burton Group. "Virtualization platform vendors, service providers, and IT organizations require efficient methods for validating standards compliance and interoperability. Tools capable of solving these challenges will accelerate standards-based virtual infrastructure management, while providing the necessary checks to ensure that a vendor's attempt at standards compliance is far more than a marketing checkbox."

Twenty leading companies in the virtualization management industry are currently participating in the VMAN Forum. These companies include:

• Broadcom
• Cisco
• Citrix Systems, Inc.
• Dell
• Emulex
• Fortisphere, Inc.
• Hewlett-Packard Company
• Hitachi, Ltd.
• IBM
• Infosys Technologies Limited
• Intel Corporation
• Microsoft Corporation
• NextIO, Inc.
• Novell
• SAP AG
• Solarflare Communications
• Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Symantec Corporation
• VMware, Inc.
• WBEM Solutions

Membership in the VMAN Forum is open to all DMTF members. Click here for more information, or to join the forum. Additional resources related to the DMTF VMAN Initiative are also available on the DMTF Web site.

About DMTF
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 16 innovative, industry-leading technology companies. They include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); Broadcom Corporation; CA; Citrix; Dell; EMC; Fujitsu; HP; Hitachi, Ltd.; IBM; Intel Corporation; Microsoft Corporation; Novell; Oracle; Sun Microsystems, Inc.; and VMware. 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.

Press Contacts:

Rachel Shaver/Lisa Sherwin Nereus for DMTF +1.503.619.0563 Press@dmtf.org