What prompted the creation of the NVMe-MI specification?

The NVMe-MI specification was created to define a command set and architecture for managing NVMe storage, making it possible to discover, monitor, configure, and update NVMe devices in multiple operating environments. It started with just out-of-band management for OS agnostic management of SSDs over SMBUS, to have a standard way for SSDs and host servers manage NVMe SSDs.