08/31/2004

Plans have been unveiled for the Data Center Markup Language (DCML) Organization to advance its specification, technical agenda, membership, and operations as part of the global OASIS standards consortium.

The organizations provided the following details:

Through this transition, DCML stands to benefit from OASIS' broad membership base--more than 3,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members across 100 countries. The transition will result in the formation of the OASIS DCML Member Section, which will promote the use of utility computing by providing a standard way to represent the IT environment and enabling data center automation and system management solutions to easily exchange information about the environment under management.

"Transitioning the DCML Organization to OASIS marks the next significant milestone in the development of the specification and promises to further accelerate its adoption amongst organizations worldwide," said Louis Blatt of Computer Associates, president of the DCML Organization. Blatt noted that nearly half of OASIS member organizations represent end users, diversity which he considers, "a key factor for ensuring the broad market adoption of the DCML specification. OASIS has an impressive track record and offers DCML access to deep resources across the industry. We expect the new OASIS DCML Member Section will advance the current DCML specification to the status of an internationally accepted OASIS Standard that will allow end users to increase service levels and align their IT infrastructure with business priorities."

"The DCML Organization has demonstrated significant traction over the last nine months and garnered tremendous vendor and end-user participation. Their efforts offer exciting potential for managing the massive complexity that exists in IT environments," commented Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "We welcome the DCML community to OASIS and look forward to advancing its mission of open standardization for utility computing."

By moving its operations and technical committees under OASIS, DCML takes advantage of the international consortium's respected open technical process, transparent governance, and international reach. Founded in 1993, OASIS produces widely adopted standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. DCML joins a host of specifications developed at OASIS including the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM), Web Services Security (WSS), and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI).

Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst, Donna Scott, applauded the transition, saying, "OASIS is a natural fit for DCML and will provide the global participation and momentum to drive the Framework Specification forward. Today's data centers are struggling under many burdens, and specifications such as DCML could become key to achieving an efficient, automated IT infrastructure that provides the benefits of a real-time infrastructure."

The OASIS DCML Member Section will be managed by a Steering Committee made up of the existing DCML board of directors that includes Louis Blatt of Computer Associates, Darrel Thomas of EDS, and Sharmila Shahani of Opsware Inc.; others may be added in the future.