Defines the core architecture and protocols in SMI-S. The components of SMI-S architecture include: Transport - communicating management information between constituents of the management system; Health and fault management - detecting failures through monitoring the state of storage components; General information about the object model; Names - how SMI-S uses names to allow applications to correlate across SMI-S and to other standards; Standard messages - how exceptions are presented to client applications; Service discovery - techniques clients use to discover SMI-S services; Installation and upgrade - recommendations for implementations.