Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, and Others Collaborate on Service Modeling Language

Microsoft and a bunch of other major tech vendors announced publication of a draft specification for an XML language for system management. The spec is called the Service Modeling Language (SML) which is derived from a lot of the work Microsoft has been doing on the System Definition Model. The intent is that with a commmon language, vendors can define models for each of their products and systems which can then be composed into larger systems and managed by compliant management systems. Modeling is a big theme being added to a lot of Microsoft products as you can see in Visual Studio.