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.