Press Release

Members Approve Solution Deployment Descriptor (SDD) 1.0 as OASIS Standard

IBM, Sun Microsystems, CA, Fujitsu, SAP, SAS, and Others Collaborate to Standardize Software Installation Characteristics for Lifecycle Management

Boston, MA, USA; 16 September 2008 — OASIS, the international open standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved the Solution Deployment Descriptor (SDD) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Developed through an open process by the OASIS SDD Technical Committee, the new standard defines a standard way to express software installation characteristics for lifecycle management in multi-platform environments.

Managing software deployment and maintenance today can be a highly manual and error-prone task. Each hosting platform or operating system has its own format for expressing packaging of a single installable unit of software. Even on homogeneous platforms, there is no standard way to combine packages into a single aggregated unit without re-creating dependency and installation instructions. The problem is compounded for multi-platform environments.

"SDD lets you describe software solution packages independent of the software installation technology or supplier," said Brent Miller of IBM, chair of the OASIS SDD Technical Committee. "By providing a consistent model and semantics, SDD gives you the means to express dependencies and define characteristics that are most relevant for solution deployment, configuration, and maintenance."

"Instead of burying deployment knowledge in code or documentation, SDD externalizes it, making it available to both people and software," added Laurent Liscia, executive director of OASIS. "Access to deployment information means SDD users are better able to plan for and execute successful changes to their software environments."

Successful use of SDD was verified by OASIS Foundational Sponsor, IBM, and by Sponsors, CA and SAS, in accordance with eligibility requirements for all OASIS Standards. SDD was developed under the Royalty-Free on Limited Terms mode of the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights Policy.

Participation in the SDD Technical Committee remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, government agencies, academic institutions, and individuals. Archives of the work are publicly accessible, and OASIS offers a mechanism for public comment. The Committee plans to continue its work by incorporating additional features into SDD and enabling new use cases.

Support for SDD 1.0

IBM "The acceptance of this new OASIS Standard, which helps automate software deployments, demonstrates what can be achieved when software vendors work together to simplify management of information technology. IBM continues to help drive these efforts as a leading proponent of open standards and software vendor interoperability needed to reduce IT management complexity for our customers," said Matthew Ellis, vice president of Autonomic Computing, IBM.

CA "SDD effectively defines a standardized, vendor-independent model for software packages and their dependencies across heterogeneous environments. SDD will thus enable CA to offer customers new capabilities for the deployment, lifecycle, and configuration management of CA solutions, further streamlining key IT management processes and lowering the ownership costs associated with large, complex enterprise computing environments," said Paul Lipton, Advisor and Senior Architect for Industry Standards and Open Source at CA.

SAP "The acceptance of SDD as an OASIS Standard is a promising step toward unifying lifecycle management tasks, regardless of platform or hosting environment. With SDD, we hope to be able to define complex software deployment scenarios which span multiple vendors, products and systems, all while hiding the complexity from administrators. SDD can significantly help drive down TCO for lifecycle management activities such as installation, update and upgrade," said Michael Bechauf, vice president, Industry Standards at the Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP.

SAS "SAS customers will realize tremendous value as a result of the OASIS SDD project. As this important standard is implemented, software deployment will be simplified, standardized and offer reduced total cost of software ownership. IT executives have been quite clear that improved software life-cycle management is critical, especially in multiplatform environments, and SAS is acting to meet that need," said Jason Losh, senior software development manager at SAS.

Additional information:

OASIS SDD Technical Committee

About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) drives the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for the global information society. A not-for-profit consortium, OASIS advances standards for SOA, security, Web services, documents, e-commerce, government and law, localisation, supply chains, XML processing, and other areas of need identified by its members. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. http://www.oasis-open.org

Press contact: Carol Geyer OASIS Director of Communications carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209 (office) +1.941.284.0403 (mobile)