Portland, Ore. – May 4, 2011 – The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), the organization bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on systems management standards development, validation, promotion and adoption, today announced it has begun work on a set of specifications to specifically address a cloud provider’s ability to audit their systems for potential security concerns. The specifications will be developed in the newly formed “Cloud Auditing Data Federation Work Group (CADF),” which will work to enable providers to increase security capabilities to address customer concerns over cloud provider security, one of the top inhibitors to the adoption of cloud deployment models.

Virtualization and cloud computing allow customers to improve the efficiency, availability and flexibility of their IT systems over time. However, the incomplete landscape for security standards in cloud environments continues to be a concern among potential adopters. As such, a cloud provider’s ability to provide specific audit event, log and report information on a per-tenant basis is essential. DMTF’s CADF will develop open standards for cloud auditing, which will instill customers with greater trust in cloud hosted applications.

 “DMTF continues to be a leader in the development of cloud standards, through our Cloud Management Work Group (CMWG) and our Software License Management (SLM) Incubator, as well as close collaboration with our alliance partners who are also focused on the cloud,” said Winston Bumpus, DMTF president. “Addressing the issue of security in cloud and virtual environments through our Cloud Auditing Data Federation Work Group will be the next significant step forward in establishing an open cloud marketplace.”

Specifications and profiles produced by the CADF will help protect the investments of companies seeking to move their applications to cloud deployment models and preserve their ability to audit operational processes, regardless of their chosen cloud provider. The CADF will develop specifications for audit event data and interface models and a compatible interaction model that will describe interactions between IT resources for cloud deployment models.

The CADF forms a key piece of DMTF’s overall cloud strategy. The specifications developed in the CADF will combine with those developed in the CMWG to provide a suite of specifications that enable interoperable cloud management between service providers. Both groups are leveraging the recommendations provided by the now completed Open Cloud Standards Incubator, which brought key players in the industry together to agree on the best approach for standardizing cloud management. DMTF also continues to work closely with alliance partners like the The Open Group, Cloud Security Alliance, Object Management Group and the Storage Networking Industry Alliance to ensure alignment within the industry.

The CADF expects a preliminary specification to be ready within the next year.

Additional Resources:

• Whitepaper - The Interoperable Cloud
• Reference Architecture for Managing Clouds
• Use Cases and Interactions for Managing Clouds
• Open Virtualization Format (OVF) - DMTF standard for packaging and distributing virtual appliances
• Charter - Cloud Auditing Data Federation Work Group
• Charter - Cloud Management Work Group
• Charter - Software License Management Incubator

About DMTF
DMTF enables more effective management of millions of IT systems worldwide by bringing the IT industry together to collaborate on the development, validation and promotion of systems management standards. The group spans the industry with 160 member companies and organizations, and more than 4,000 active participants crossing 43 countries. The DMTF board of directors is led by 15 innovative, industry-leading technology companies. They include Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); Broadcom Corporation; CA Technologies.; Cisco; Citrix Systems, Inc.; EMC; Fujitsu; HP; Huawei; IBM; Intel Corporation; Microsoft Corporation; Oracle; RedHat and VMware, Inc. With this deep and broad reach, DMTF creates standards that enable interoperable IT management. DMTF management standards are critical to enabling management interoperability among multi-vendor systems, tools and solutions within the enterprise. Information about DMTF technologies and activities can be found at http://www.dmtf.org.