Industry Leaders Form Group to Promote Open Source Enterprise Management Environment

Participants in the WBEMsource initiative include The Open Group, Sun Microsystems, Caldera International, the Storage Networking Industry Association , and the b4wbem project.

Menlo Park, CA. June 6, 2001 - A group of leading companies, consortia, and open source projects today announced the formation of the WBEMsource initiative, a collaboration of major industry players with the goal of improving the manageability of large scale WBEM implementation.  The new group will work to define and promote an open source enterprise management environment based on the Distributed Management's Task Force's (DMTF) WBEM standards.

The mission of the WBEMsource initiative is to promote the widespread usage of the DMTF's management technology standards through:

Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. WBEM will deliver a well-integrated set of standard-based management tools leveraging the emerging Web technologies. The DMTF has developed a core set of standards that make up WBEM, which includes a data model, the Common Information Model (CIM) standard; an encoding specification, xmlCIM Encoding Specification; and a transport mechanism, CIM Operations over HTTP.

The WBEMsource initiative will work with the DMTF, The Open Group and other interested standards organizations to create and enhance standards, and with developers of open source implementations of WBEM to create an environment of interoperable WBEM implementations.

Organizations supporting the WBEMsource initiative include BMC Software, Caldera International, Cisco Systems, Compaq, Computer Associates, the Distributed Management Task Force, Evidian, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, The Open Group, the Storage Networking Industry Association, and Sun Microsystems.

Open source projects that are participating in the WBEMsource initiative include The Open Group's Pegasus project, Sun Microsystems's WBEM Services, Caldera International's OpenWBEM project, the SNIA Open Source CIMOM project, and the b4wbem project.

Participation in the WBEMsource initiative is open to anyone who is interested in either creating or using WBEM and wants to help create an open source WBEM environment. It is simple to join by visiting the initiative's website at www.opengroup.org/wbemsource.

Quotes about the launching of the WBEMsource Initiative:

BMC Software

"As a founding member of WBEM, member of The Open Group and current Director of the DMTF Board, BMC Software is happy to contribute to the progress of interoperability," said Mark Sterin, director, Advanced Technologies Research, BMC Software. "The industry as a whole will reap the rewards in productivity and cost savings from open source enterprise management."

Caldera International

"As we developed our Linux systems management product, Caldera Volution, Caldera International recognized the need for an open management standard like the DMTF WBEM standard," said Darren Davis, vice president of technology strategy for Caldera's Management Software Business. "Caldera is a founder of the WBEMsource initiative and is supporting the project by contributing it's own OpenWBEM source to the Open Source community (www.openwbem.org)."

Cisco Systems

"The formation of the WBEMsource initiative is a very significant step in the development of a robust market for WBEM technologies," said Jim Turner, Director of Marketing for Cisco Systems' Enterprise Management Business unit. "We believe the WBEM standards will enable a new generation of network-integrated of management tools, and are implementing WBEM interfaces in our CiscoWorks2000 product family."

Computer Associates

"CA has consistently demonstrated a real commitment to both fostering standards that facilitate the management of heterogeneous computing environments and implementing those standards in our own management solutions," said John Pincomb, vice president, marketing, Computer Associates. "This commitment is evidenced by the fact that our Unicenter solutions support WBEM standards and that we are actively participating in the WBEMsource initiative to further develop those standards to leverage the strengths of open source development."

The Distributed Management Task Force

"The WBEMsource initiative brings additional opportunities to promote WBEM implementations and enhance the future interoperability of management technology." said Winston Bumpus, president of the DMTF. "The DMTF is committed to working with the industry to promote the collaboration of projects that enable distributed management."

Evidian

"Evidian welcomes the WBEMsource initiative and looks forward to contributing to the development efforts of this new group," said Philippe Pradat, Evidian's VP of product engineering and marketing. "We already have demonstrated interoperability between WBEM and OpenMaster, our e-infrastructure management product, and are actively involved in the open source movement, as demonstrated by the popularity of the JOnAS application server, our implementation of EJB specifications. We have long supported opportunities such as these to share expertise within the broad software community to help define industry standards that benefit us all."

Hewlett-Packard

"The WBEMsource initiative is another example of HP's commitment to drive and support open standards. An always-on internet infrastructure will benefit from the WBEMsource initiative by addressing the growing demands for tightly integrated management applications." said Nick van der Zweep, Director of Marketing - Always-On Infrastructure Solutions Division of Hewlett-Packard. "HP is excited to implement the WBEM standard to bring to our customers not only improved interoperability and portability of management applications in a heterogeneous IT environment, but also the cost benefit through significantly increased operational efficiency."

IBM Corporation

"IBM has been very enthusiastic about any initiatives that increase the viability of open platforms," said Dr. Daniel Frye, Director, IBM Linux Technology Center. "This approach to standards for management technologies will help drive innovation to integrate data and services throughout the enterprise."

The Open Group

"The Open Group is pleased to host the WBEMsource initiative. We are committed to using WBEM and CIM with our open source Pegasus project (www.opengroup.org/pegasus). The Open Group's core skill - building certification programs - will maximise interoperability among all implementations, a major contribution to achieving widespread acceptance of the WBEM standards. By promoting an open source approach, we believe that the time to deployment will be dramatically reduced and the risks associated with integrating new technology lowered." Allen Brown, President & CEO, The Open Group.

The Storage Networking Industry Association

"The SNIA is committed to the development and promotion of the Common Information Model (CIM) as the future of enterprise management. The WBEMsource initiative represents a key factor leading to the adoption of CIM," said Larry Krantz, Chairman of the SNIA Board of Directors. "The SNIA CIMOM has been available since 1999 for download and use under an Open Source license. Participating in the WBEMsource initiative is part of the SNIA mission to increase management capability, interoperability, and adoption of storage networks."

Sun Microsystems

"A major issue facing information technology staff is the increasing cost of managing across a network--consisting of hardware, software, and storage from multiple vendors. The WBEMsource initiative will provide a basis for sharing management information between managed elements, between different vendors, and across the network," said Andy Ingram, vice president of marketing for Solaris Products, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "In order to facilitate sharing management information and help our customers drive down the cost of managing the network, Sun has developed Solaris WBEM Services software as a core technology of the Solaris 8 Operating Environment and will make a Java source implementation available, to the open source community, for widespread industry adoption."

FAQ on the WBEMsource initiative

For more information, please contact Martin Kirk, Director of the Enterprise Management Forum, The Open Group, +44 118 950 8311.

About The Open Group

The Open Group, a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium is committed to delivering greater business efficiency by bringing together buyers and suppliers of information technology to lower the time, cost and risks associated with integrating new technology across the enterprise. The Open Group's mission is to offer all organizations concerned with open information infrastructures a forum where they can share knowledge, integrate open initiatives, and certify approved products and processes in a manner in which they continue to trust our impartiality.