TRUSTED COMPUTING GROUP
STORAGE WORK GROUP

Storage Interface Interactions Specification (SIIS) FAQ
May 2023

Q. What is the Storage Work Group?
A. The Storage Work Group is an organization within the Trusted Computing Group. It consists of TCG member
companies with interests in the implementation of the Trusted Computing Group’s methodologies for storage. For more
information on the Storage Work Group, please see the documents at www.trustedcomputinggroup.org
Q. What is the TCG Storage Interface Interactions Specification?
A. SIIS specifies how the TCG Storage Core Specification and the Storage Security Class (SSC) specifications interactwith industry standards for storage device interfaces and transports. It maps trusted storage device errors to interfacespecific errors, maps interface-specific resets to device resets, describes interface-specific commands used to delivercommands to the device and retrieve data from the device, and interactions with some interface-specific features.

Q. Who would use the TCG SIIS document?
A. The TCG SIIS document should be used by anyone implementing a TCG Storage Core Specification and a TCG SSC(e.g. Optical, Opal or Enterprise SSC). The storage device interfaces supported include, but are not limited to ATA, SCSI,UFS, NVMe, e•MMC and ATAPI.

Q. What is the relationship of the TCG SIIS document to other TCG specifications?
A. The SIIS document is currently referenced by the TCG Storage Architecture Core Specifications and by TCG Storage
SSCs.

Q. Where can you obtain copies of the TCG SIIS document and related TCG specifications?
A. The SIIS document is available at www.trustedcomputinggroup.org

Q. Have you taken into account existing standards such as those for SCSI and ATA? How are you working withother standards bodies?
A. Yes. The SIIS document was developed with advice from industry experts that are TCG members and participants in
the JEDEC, NVM Express, and the INCITS T10 (SCSI) and T13 (ATA/ATAPI) standards committees.

Q. Will products based on the TCG SIIS work in today’s PC architectures?
A. Yes. Operation in legacy environments was a primary concern in the development of the document.

Q. Does the TCG SIIS address flash drives and other portable storage devices?
A. Yes. The SIIS addresses any type of storage device on the supported interfaces, transports, and above mentionedSSCs.

Q. Does the SIIS describe the interaction between TCG security and interface-specific security protocols?
A. Yes. The interaction between the ATA security feature set and TCG security is described in the SIIS.

(SIIS) FAQ

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TRUSTED COMPUTING GROUP
STORAGE WORK GROUP

Q. Which versions of SIIS have been published in the last five years and how do they differ?
A.
VersionPublished
Summary of changes from the previous version
1.08

Aug. 14, 2018

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

1.09

Oct. 26, 2020

1)
2)
3)

4)

5)

6)

1.10

Nov. 14, 2021

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

7)

8)

9)

(SIIS) FAQ

definition of “user data removal methods”;
interactions with ATA: storage element depopulation;interactions with SCSI: storage element depopulation, READSTREAM(16), WRITE STREAM(16), READ LONG commands;
interactions with NVMe: Format NVM command; andcross reference updates; andminor some editorial cleanup.
converted to the new official TCG style template
Editorial: added cross references, fixed spelling, grammar, andformatting, updated approved references
ATA:a. Commands: OPEN ZONE EXT, REPORT REALMS EXT,REPORT ZONE DOMAINS EXT, ZONE ACTIVATE EXT,ZONE QUERY EXT, RESTORE ELEMENT AND
REPOPULATE, MUTATE EXTSCSI:a. Commands: EXTENDED COPY, FORMAT WITHPRESETS, REPORT ZONE DOMAINS, REPORTREALMS, ZONE ACTIVATE, ZONE QUERY, RESTOREELEMENTS AND REBUILD
b. Resets: distinction between reset actions for single port
and dual port,
NVMe:
a. Commands: NVMe-MI Send, NVMe-MI Receive,
Namespace Management
interactions with TCG Storage Feature Set ShadowMBR forMultiple Namespaces
Conventions section: scope, keywords, lists, numbering, bitconventions, number range convention
Editorial: added cross references, fixed spelling, grammar, andformatting, updated approved references
Additional Methods Status CodeLevel 0 Discovery – SIIS Feature Descriptor, and the Zoned BlockDevices (KEY CHANGE ZONE BEHAVIOR bit
Clarifications about the GenKey method and LBA range boundaries
ATA:
a. Commands: REMOVE ELEMENT AND TRUNCATE
b. Interactions with Zoned Block devices
SCSI interactions:a. added TPer scope,b. interactions with Zoned Block Devices
NVMe interactions:a. TPer scope,b. Commands: NVMe-MI Reset comand, Verify, Copy,Compare, Dataset Management, NVMe-MI Send, NVMe-MI
Receive, Zone Append, Zone Management Send, Zone
Management Receive
c. changed some requirements to apply to the TPer instead ofthe NVM Subsystem,
d. Opal interactions with the NVMe Namespace Write
Protection feature,e•MMC interactions: TPer scope

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TRUSTED COMPUTING GROUP
STORAGE WORK GROUP

VersionPublished

Summary of changes from the previous version

1.11

March 14,2023

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

6)

7)

8)
9)

(SIIS) FAQ

updated the data removal method definition
Editorial: added cross references, fixed spelling, grammar, andformatting, updated approved references
new defined terms
Level 0 SIIS feature descriptor: added Identifier Usage Scope
ATA:
a. Opal family with REMOVE ELEMENT AND MODIFYZONES, Enterprise SSC with REMOVE ELEMENT AND
MODIFY ZONES,b. Commands: MUTATE EXT, REMOVE ELEMENT AND
MODIFY ZONES
SCSI:
a. reservations,b. support for more than one Logical Unit,
c. Opal family with REMOVE ELEMENT AND MODIFYZONES,
d. Enterprise SSC with REMOVE ELEMENT AND MODIFYZONES,
e. Commands: REMOVE ELEMENT AND MODIFY ZONES,FORMAT WITH PRESETS
NVMe:a. Resets: mapping of NVM Subsystem Reset, NVMe-MIReset, split NVMe-MI resets from PCIe resets,b. Added Namespace ID for Security Protocols 1 and 3c. Added new Security Protocol 3 for Key per I/O
d. IF-SEND/IF-RECV support for SPID=3 for Key Per I/O
commands,
e. Added support for Reservations
f. added 2 new TPer error codes,
g. Commands: Format NVM,
h. updated interactions with the NVMe Namespace Write
Protection feature, updated interaction with the Deassign
methodNew NVDIMM-N interface support
New SD card interface support

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