In computing, the Common Information Model (CIM) is a standard defined by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science that deals with the original sense of computing mathematical calculations. ... Standardization, in the context related to technologies and industries, is the process of establishing a technical standard among competing entities in a market, where this will bring benefits without hurting competition. ... Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF, formerly Desktop Management Task Force) is an industry consortium that develops, supports, and maintains standards for systems management of PC systems and products, to reduce total cost of ownership. ...

The most important part of the CIM standard is the CIM Schema, a conceptual schema that defines how the managed elements in an IT environment are represented as a common set of objects and relationships between them. Another frequently used way to describe CIM is to say that it allows multiple parties to exchange management information about these managed elements. However, this falls short in expressing that CIM not only represents these managed elements and the management information, but also provides means to actively control and manage these elements. By using a common model of information, management software can be written once and work with many implementations of the common model without complex and costly conversion operations or loss of information. The managed elements represented in the CIM Schema include most of today's elements in an IT environment, for example Computer systems, Operating systems, Networks, Middleware, Services and Storage. A conceptual schema, or High-level data model or conceptual data model, is a map of concepts and their relationships, for example, a conceptual schema for a karate studio would include abstractions such as student, belt, grading and tournament. ... Information technology (IT) or Information and communication(s) technology (ICT) is a broad subject concerned with technology and other aspects of managing and processing information, especially in large organizations. ... In strictly mathematical branches of computer science the term object is used in a purely mathematical sense to refer to any thing. While this interpretation is useful in the discussion of abstract theory, it is not concrete enough to serve as a primitive datatype in the discussion of more concrete... A computer system is an automated data-processing system that uses a programmable electronic device to store, retrieve, and process data. ... An operating system is a special computer program that manages the relationship between application software, the wide variety of hardware that makes up a computer system, and the user of the system. ... A computer network is a system for communication between computers. ... In computing, middleware consists of software agents acting as an intermediary between different application components. ... In Unix and other computer operating systems, a daemon is a particular class of computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user; they are usually instantiated as processes. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

The CIM Schema defines a common basis for representing these managed elements. Since most managed elements have product and vendor specific behavior, the CIM Schema is extensible in order to allow the producers of these elements to represent their specific features seamlessly together with the CIM defined common base functionality.

Besides the CIM Schema itself, the CIM standard also defines the concepts and rules by which the CIM Schema is defined, including a language called Managed Object Format (MOF) in which the CIM Schema and any product specific extensions are defined. The concepts are based upon UML, so the CIM Schema is object-oriented: The managed elements are represented as CIM classes and any relationships between them are represented as CIM associations. Inheritance allows to represent common base elements and more specific derived elements. The MOF language and the concepts used to define the CIM Schema are described in the CIM Infrastructure Specification. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a non-proprietary, object modeling and specification language used in software engineering. ...

CIM is the basis for most of the other DMTF standards (e.g. WBEM or SMASH). To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Systems Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) is a suite of specifications that deliver industry standard protocols to increase productivity of the management of a data center. ...

The first version of the CIM Schema was released by the DMTF on April 9, 1997. Version V2.11 was published on December 20, 2005. April 9 is the 99th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (100th in leap years). ... 1997 (MCMXCVII in Roman) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... December 20 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Many vendors provide implementations of CIM in various forms. For example, the Windows Management Instrumentation API available in Microsoft Windows 2000 and higher uses the CIM Schema version 2 as its basis. Windows Management Instrumentation, or WMI, is a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model. ... Microsoft Windows is a series of popular proprietary operating environments and operating systems created by Microsoft for use on personal computers and servers. ...

External links

• DMTF CIM Standard