WBEM and WMI

Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), an initiative of the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF), offers a standardized and economical solu­tion and interface for management solutions. WBEM defines uniform access to management information, such as the conditions of the hardware config­uration or a system or inventoried data.

The Common Information Model (CIM), a part of WBEM, offers a consistent and platform-independent view of all logical and physical objects in a man­agement environment. For example, managed objects are shown in a uni­form manner using logical constructs, so-called classes.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is the Microsoft-specific implementation of WBEM technology for Windows platforms. WMI contains:

  • A management infrastructure that makes the data available
  • An interface between management applications and the management infrastructure.

 

Management applications are applications or Microsoft Windows services that process object information. They do so in different ways:

  • Directly via MNI
  • Via ODBC and HTML. For example, Access "sees" WMI as a normal data­base via ODBC. HTML Pages can be accessed using ActiveX controls.

The management infrastructure makes data available, as follows:

  • From a platform-independent database, the CIM repository
  • Using platform-specific providers that are either offered by WMI itself or by third parties.

WMIproviders are brokers between WMI and the objects to be administered. If WMI receives a query from a management application that is not available in the CIM repository, it forwards the query to a provider:

  • PerfMon Provider, Registry Provider and WDM Provider are examples of standard providers. Standard providers make data available from standard objects for standard management applications, such as Performance Monitor, Registry and Windows Driver Model (WDM).
  • Provider X, Provider Y and Provider Z (see illustration below) are examples of custom providers that provide manufacturer-specific data.