ODCA and DMTF: Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together?
Cameron Sturdevant is the executive editor of Enterprise Networking Planet. Prior to ENP, Cameron was technical analyst at PCWeek Labs, starting in 1997. Cameron finished up as the eWEEK Labs Technical Director in 2012. Before his extensive labs tenure Cameron paid his IT dues working in technical support and sales engineering at a software publishing firm . Cameron also spent two years with a database development firm, integrating applications with mainframe legacy programs. Cameron's areas of expertise include virtual and physical IT infrastructure, cloud computing, enterprise networking and mobility. In addition to reviews, Cameron has covered monolithic enterprise management systems throughout their lifecycles, providing the eWEEK reader with all-important history and context. Cameron takes special care in cultivating his IT manager contacts, to ensure that his analysis is grounded in real-world concern. Follow Cameron on Twitter at csturdevant, or reach him by email at cameron.sturdevant@quinstreet.com.
Email
Print
On Nov. 3 the ODCA and DMTF announced that they would collaborate to speed development of industry standards for cloud management.
A fledgling customer cloud standards advocacy group and a long-established vendor group "announced a collaboration that will hasten the development of industry standards for managing cloud computing environments."
I was very hot on the idea of a powerful collection of cloud consuming companies coming together in the form of the ODCA (Open Data Center Alliance). When the ODCA released a set of usage models I was especially heartened. Customers need a strong voice with which to speak in the fast developing world of virtualized data center operations. Thus, the news earlier this month that the vendor dominated DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) was formally collaborating with the ODCA, didn't immediately fill me with good thoughts. Keep in mind that I've had a years-long relationship with the DMTF and have a great deal of admiration for the groups work including CIM, OVF and SMASH.
After speaking with Winston Bumpus, DMTF President, I was assuaged, but still not entirely at ease. The reason for my slight discomfort is the fact that the ODCA has so quickly taken up with a vendor group without first proving that it could make win even a single demand that forced vendors to give ground.
To paraphrase Bumpus, this quick collaborative effort between customers and vendors will speed up work that makes the ODCA usage models a reality. That makes sense and I hope that the energy and spirit that brought together the ODCA punches through the languorous pace that sometimes marks that DMTF's efforts.
