The Storage Management Initiative Specification, commonly called SMI-S, is a
computer data storage
Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers.
The central processing unit (CPU) of a comput ...
management
standard developed and maintained by the
Storage Networking Industry Association
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a registered 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association incorporated in December 1997. SNIA has more than 185 unique members, 2,000 active contributing members and over 50,000 IT end users and st ...
(SNIA). It has also been ratified as an
ISO standard.
[.] SMI-S is based upon the
Common Information Model and the
Web-Based Enterprise Management
In computing, Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) comprises a set of systems-management technologies developed to unify the management of distributed computing environments. The WBEM initiative, initially sponsored in 1996 by BMC Software, C ...
standards defined by the
Distributed Management Task Force
Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit industry standards organization that creates open manageability standards spanning diverse emerging and traditional IT infrastructures including cloud, virtualization, network, s ...
, which define management functionality via HTTP. The most recent approved version of SMI-S is available on the SNIA website.
[.]
The main objective of SMI-S is to enable broad interoperable management of heterogeneous storage vendor systems. The current version is SMI-S 1.8.0 Rev 5. Over 1,350 storage products are certified as conformant to SMI-S.
[.]
Basic concepts
SMI-S defines
CIM
CIM or Cim may refer to:
Businesses and organizations Professional organizations
* Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, a professional organisation
* The Chartered Institute of Marketing, a professional organisation
Relig ...
management profiles for storage systems. The entire SMI Specification is categorized in profiles and subprofiles. A profile describes the behavioral aspects of an autonomous, self-contained management domain. SMI-S includes profiles for
Arrays,
Switch
In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type ...
es, Storage Virtualizers, Volume Management and several other management domains. In DMTF parlance, an SMI-S provider is an implementation for a specific profile or set of profiles. A subprofile describes a part of a management domain, and can be a common part in more than one profile.
At a very basic level, SMI-S entities are divided into two categories:
* Clients are management software applications that can reside virtually anywhere within a network, provided they have a communications link (either within the data path or outside the data path) to providers.
* Servers are the devices under management. Servers can be disk arrays, virtualization engines, host bus adapters, switches, tape drives, etc.
SMI-S timeline
* 2000 – Collection of computer storage industry leaders led by Roger Reich begins building an interoperable management backbone for storage and storage networks (named Bluefin) in a small consortia called the Partner Development Process.
* 2002 – Bluefin donated by the consortia to the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and later renamed to Storage Management Initiative – Specification or SMI-S. SMI-S 1.0 publicly announced by the SNIA.
* 2003 – The Storage Management Initiative launches formal industry wide specification development, interoperability testing and demonstrations programs, as well as
conformance testing
Conformance testing — an element of conformity assessment, and also known as compliance testing, or type testing — is testing or other activities that determine whether a process, product, or service complies with the requirements of a specif ...
systems and certifications. Work proceeds in the SNIA SMI Technical Steering Committee and related TWGs.
* 2004 – SMI-S 1.0.2 becomes an
ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...
standard. Initial development of SMI-S 1.1.0 started.
* 2005 – SMI-S 1.0.2 submitted to
ISO.
* 2006 – SMI-S 1.0.3 accepted as an ISO standard. SMI-S 1.1.0 published as a SNIA Technical Position.
Working Drafts developed for SMI-S 1.2.0.
* 2007 – SMI-S 1.2.0 published as a SNIA Technical Position.
Working Drafts developed for SMI-S 1.3.0 and SMI-S 1.4.0.
* 2008 – SMI-S 1.1.1 published as an ANSI standard
[.] and submitted to ISO for consideration as an ISO standard. SMI-S 1.3.0 published as a SNIA Technical Position.
* 2009 – SMI-S 1.4.0 published as a SNIA Technical Position.
Working Drafts developed for SMI-S 1.5.0.
* 2010 – SMI-S 1.5.0 published as a SNIA Technical Position.
Working Drafts developed for SMI-S 1.6.0.
* 2011 – SMI-S 1.1.1 published as an ISO standard, ISO/IEC 24775:2011.
SMI-S 1.3.0 published as an ANSI standard: INCITS 388-2011.
[.] Development continues on SMI-S 1.6.0 and 1.6.1 in SNIA Technical Work Groups. Discussions are being conducted re a possible SMI-S V2.0.
* 2012 �
SMI-S 1.6.0published as a SNIA Technical Position.
Five interoperability plugfests held.
* 2013 – Working Drafts developed for SMI-S 1.6.1. Five interoperability plugfests held, include one international plugfest (US and China).
* 2014 – Eight books that comprise SMI-S 1.5.0 published as an ISO standard: ''Information technology -- Storage management''.
/ref> SNIA SMI-S 1.6.1 Rev 5 published as a SNIA Technical Position.
Open source projects
pywbem
- An open source library written in Python. It provides storage management software developers and system administrators with an easy-to-use method of accessing Common Information Model (CIM) objects and operations in Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) servers, such as those found in SMI-S and other CIM-based environments.
pywbem GitHub Library
- A repository of pywbem projects on GitHub.
pywbem Documentation
- An overview of pywbem projects, community issues and feature requests.
StorageIM
SMI-S monitor client for SMI-enabled Arrays, Switches, HBAs and Storage Libraries.
SBLIM
Umbrella project for a collection of systems management tools to enable WBEM on Linux.
See also
*CIM
CIM or Cim may refer to:
Businesses and organizations Professional organizations
* Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, a professional organisation
* The Chartered Institute of Marketing, a professional organisation
Relig ...
— Common Information Model
* WBEM — Web-Based Enterprise Management
* SNIA — Storage Networking Industry Association
SCVMM
System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager
*Storage Management Initiative Specification
SMI-S
– SNIA SMI-S website
References
External links
Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S)
provides good material both at the overview and detail level.
Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S)
Releases – Approved specifications of SMI-S.
SMI Developers Group
provides information to assist developers working with SMI.
Storage Management Lab Program (SM Lab)
provides information about the program that runs SMI-S interoperability plugfests.
SMI-S Conformance Testing Program (SMI-S CTP)
describes how SNIA validates that a member company's products (software or hardware) conform to a specific version of SMI-S.
DMTF Standard Publications
contains a list of published DMTF standards.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Storage Management Initiative - Specification
Computer data storage
American National Standards Institute standards