Overview
ISO/IEC 24775-4:2014 - Information technology - Storage management - Part 4: Block devices - defines a standardized interface for secure, extensible and interoperable management of distributed, heterogeneous block storage systems. The standard specifies an object-oriented, XML-based, messaging protocol that exposes storage information and management operations to a WBEM Client via a CIM WBEM Server. Part 4 focuses on block-device concepts such as storage pools, volumes, logical disks and block-oriented service views.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Object model & CIM classes: Definitions and mappings for classes such as StoragePool, StorageVolume, LogicalDisk and related CIM associations (e.g., StorageSetting, StorageCapabilities).
- Block Services package: Procedures and semantics for creating, manipulating and reporting on storage pools, volumes and extents, including capacity calculations and conservation rules.
- Array and Block Storage Views: Profiles that describe array-level models, all-LUNs views, and SNIA-aligned block storage views for interoperability.
- Health, fault and cascading considerations: Indication filters, predefined indications and health/fault management guidelines to enable monitoring and event notification.
- Methods and operations: Intrinsic and extrinsic methods for storage configuration, allocation (allocatedFromStoragePool), expansion, deletion and capability negotiation.
- Capacity & redundancy mapping: Formulas and guidance for capacity reporting, RAID-level mapping to redundancy semantics, and capacity management.
- Maturity model & profiles: Identifies maturity stages (experimental → finalized), new profile definitions and backward-compatibility notes from the 2011 edition.
Practical applications and who uses it
ISO/IEC 24775-4 is intended for:
- Storage array vendors implementing standardized WBEM/CIM interfaces for block devices to ensure interoperability with management tools.
- Systems and storage management software developers who need consistent APIs for provisioning, capacity reporting, and event monitoring across heterogeneous arrays.
- Data center operators and cloud providers who require automated and auditable block storage provisioning, pooling and lifecycle management.
- Integration engineers and system integrators building management frameworks that orchestrate RAID mapping, storage pooling and storage volume lifecycles.
Typical uses include automated provisioning of StorageVolumes/LogicalDisks, capacity planning and reconciliation, health and fault notification, and multi-vendor storage orchestration.
Related standards
- Part of the ISO/IEC 24775 series; this document complements ISO/IEC 24775-1 to -3 and 24775-5 to -8 and together replaces the 2011 second edition of ISO/IEC 24775.
- References the CIM/WBEM ecosystem and aligns with SNIA block storage view concepts for vendor interoperability.
Keywords: ISO/IEC 24775-4:2014, storage management, block devices, WBEM, CIM, storage pools, storage volumes, logical disks, capacity management, RAID mapping, block storage views.