DMTF SM CLP Specification Adopted as an ANSI INCITS Standard

The Distributed Management Task Force announced a major technology
milestone in achieving "National Recognition with a Newly Approved ANSI
Standard." Its Server Management Command Line Protocol (SM CLP)
specification, a key component of DMTF's Systems Management Architecture
for Server Hardware (SMASH) initiative, has been approved as an American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) InterNational Committee for
Information Technology Standards (INCITS) standard. DMTF will continue
to work with INCITS to submit the new ANSI standard to the International
Standards Organization/ International Electrotechnical Commission
(ISO/IEC) Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) for approval as an
international standard. The INCITS Executive Board recently approved the
SM CLP standard, which has been designated ANSI INCITS 438-2008. INCITS
is accredited by ANSI, the organization that oversees the development of
American National Standards by accrediting the procedures of
standards-developing organizations, such as INCITS. SM CLP (DSP0214) is
a part of DMTF's SMASH initiative, which is a suite of specifications
that deliver architectural semantics, industry standard protocols and
profiles to unify the management of the data center. The SM CLP standard
was driven by a market requirement for a common command language to
manage a heterogeneous server environment. Platform vendors provide tools
and commands in order to perform systems management on their servers.
SM CLP unifies management of multi-vendor servers by providing a common
command language for key server management tasks. The spec also enables
common scripting and automation using a variety of tools. The SM CLP spec
allows management solution vendors to deliver many benefits to IT
customers. The spec enables data center administrators to securely manage
their heterogeneous server environments using a command line protocol
and a common set of commands. SM CLP also enables the development of
common scripts to increase data center automation, which can help
significantly reduce management costs... The CLP is defined as a
character-based message protocol and not as an interface, in a fashion
similar to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (RFC 2821). The CLP is a
command/response protocol, which means that a text command message is
transmitted from the Client over the transport protocol to the
Manageability Access Point (MAP). The MAP receives the command and
processes it. A text response message is then transmitted from the MAP
back to the Client... The CLP supports generating XML output data
(Extensible Markup Language, Third edition), as well as keyword mode
and modes for plain text output. XML was chosen as a supported output
format due to its acceptance in the industry, establishment as a
standard, and the need for Clients to import data obtained through the
CLP into other applications.