[December 16, 2003]   New DMTF Server Management Working Group to Evolve CIM Specification.    An announcement from the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) describes the formation of a new DMTF Server Management Working Group formed by Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Oracle, OSA Technologies, Sun Microsystems, and several other technology companies. The goal of the Server Management Working Group is to "define a platform independent, industry standard management architecture instantiated through wire level protocols built upon IP based technologies. The focus of the WG is management of server system hardware; this includes interactions with the operating system that are necessary to assist in hardware management." The architectural model will "extend the Common Information Model (CIM) schema to represent new server system topologies; it will define the syntax and semantics of a Command Line Interface (CLI) protocol, leveraging the CIM/XML protocol and identifying enhancements as necessary. The group will define profiles for different server system topologies in order to support base-level compliance, and will document an architectural model for understanding the semantic behavior of server management components." Initial deliverables identified for July 2004 include a lightweight command line interface specification, lightweight CIMOM and supported CIM operations specification, and standard server system topology profiles. Phase 2 deliverables for December 2004 include a compliance specification, test cases for interoperability, and interoperability testing data. Liaison relationships are expected to be formed with relevant OASIS TCs, the Storage Management Initiative (SNIA), W3C Working Groups, and the Service Availability Forum.

[March 18, 2003]   DMTF Publishes Three Final XML Specifications for Web-Based Enterprise Management.    The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) has published 'final status' versions of three WBEM Specifications. Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. The Common Information Model (CIM) is an object-oriented information model defined by the DMTF which provides a conceptual framework for describing management data. Specification for the Representation of CIM in XML, Specification for CIM Operations over HTTP, and CIM XML Document Type Definition represent the core set of standards defining the WBEM infrastructure. "These standards describe the encoding of the Common Information Model (CIM) using XML (xmlCIM), and define operations and the transport mechanism for the encoded data (CIM Operations over HTTP). CIM is defined by a Specification, which describes its basic modeling concepts and meta-schema design, as well as the Managed Object Format (MOF) language in which it is rendered; and a Schema, which defines the semantics for a wide range of managed objects and relationships between them. CIM serves as the data model for the WBEM Specifications, and enables applications to manage a networked environment end-to-end."

The industry organization Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF) is developing CIM as "a conceptual information model for describing management that is not bound to a particular implementation. This allows for the interchange of management information between management systems and applications. This can be either 'agent to manager' and 'manager to manager' communications which provides for Distributed System Management. There are two parts to CIM: The CIM Specification and the CIM Schema. The CIM Specification describes the language, naming, Meta Schema and mapping techniques to other management models such as SNMP MIBs, and DMTF MIFs etc. The Meta Schema is a formal definition of the model. It defines the terms used to express the model and their usage and semantics. The elements of the Meta Schema are Classes, Properties, and Methods. The Meta Schema also supports Indications and Associations as types of Classes and References as types of Properties. The CIM Schema provides the actual model descriptions. The CIM Schema supplies a set of classes with properties and associations that provide a well-understood conceptual framework within which it is possible to organize the available information about the managed environment." [from the FAQ]

[May 23, 2002]   SNIA Announces Bluefin SAN Management Specification Using WBEM/MOF/CIM.    The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has acknowledged receipt of a draft specification for a "proposed common interface for SAN [Storage Area Network] management that can reliably identify, classify, monitor and control physical and logical resources across the enterprise using a common transport for communication. The specification, code-named 'Bluefin,' employs technology from the Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative that uses the Managed Object Format (MOF) to describe system resources based on a Common Information Model (CIM). Bluefin introduces new technology for security, locking, and discovery for SAN management. The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and SNIA have been in close collaboration for several years in anticipation of driving improved storage management interoperability. DMTF has developed WBEM, a standard set of web-based enterprise management tools that unify management of enterprise computing environments. WBEM includes a data model, the Common Information Model (CIM), an encoding specification based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), and a transport mechanism based on Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). CIM is an object-oriented information model that provides a conceptual view of physical and logical system components. Taken together, these technologies provide the tools to build reliable, scalable, multi-vendor SAN management solutions." [Full context]

[October 19, 1998] Version 1.0 of the DMTF's CIM XML encoding specification was announced on October 19, 1998. The announcement said, in part: "The XML Encoding Specification defines XML elements, written in Document Type Definition (DTD), which can be used to represent CIM classes and instances. As part of the DMTF's Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) roadmap, the XML specification will enable companies to leverage Web technologies to manage enterprise systems. The Common Information Model (CIM) is an object-oriented information model standardized within the DMTF for the purposes of providing a conceptual framework within which any management data may be modeled. Allowing CIM information to be represented in the form of XML, brings all of the benefits of XML and its related technologies to management information modeled using the CIM meta-model. WBEM is a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. It provides the ability for the industry to deliver a well-integrated set of standards-based management tools, leveraging emerging technologies such as XML and CIM."

As of June 1998, a working group had been formed to develop XML encodings for the exchange of WBEM's CIM (Common Information Model) data. Several XML specifications relating to XML encoding for CIM information were approved by the DMTF Board on October 6, 1998. "XML encodings would let mainframes, Windows-based systems, and other disparate systems access and exchange management data via the Web, according to Victor Raisys, general manager of the Windows NT Server Group at Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash." The Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative, developing web data management standards, transferred the WEBM work to the Desktop Management Task Force [June 1998].

Principal References

• DMTF (Desktop Management Task Force) Home Page
• Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) Initiative - Standards
• CIM - Frequently asked Questions
• Common Information Model (CIM) Standards
• Specification for the Representation of CIM in XML. Defines a standard for the representation of Common Information Model (CIM) elements and messages in XML. [cache HTML, .ZIP]
• Specification for CIM Operations over HTTP. [cache HTML, .ZIP]
• SNIA Storage Management Initiative (SMI)
• SNIA Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S)
• Standards for Automated Resource Management in the Computing Environment

News, Articles, Papers, Reports

• [October 08, 2004]   AMD, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Release Web Services for Management (WS-Management).    A new Web Services for Management (WS-Management) specification edited by Alan Geller (Microsoft) has been published. This initial joint publication of the specification names Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Dell, Intel and Sun Microsystems as co-developers. The WS-Management specification describes a general SOAP-based protocol for managing systems such as PCs, servers, devices, Web services and other applications, and other manageable entities. According to Microsoft's announcement, WS-Management "reshapes the concept of distributed management. A key distributed application area is the management of systems and devices. Web services offer a strong foundation for building robust and interoperable systems management solutions. Designed to scale from small footprint controllers to enterprise class servers while maintaining security, WS-Management will help to create a common way of surfacing management-related operations and events within connected systems." Key terms in the WS-Management systems management model include a System as a top-level managed entity composed of one or more Resource Instances; a Resource Instance, also called a Resource or an Instance, is a single manageable item such as a disk drive or a running process. A Resource Service is a Web service that provides access to a single category of manageable items, such as disk drives or running processes, that share the same operations and representation schema. An Agent is application that provides management services for a System by exposing a set of Resource Services. A Manager is a Web service that is used to manage one or more Systems by sending messages to and/or receiving messages from an Agent for that System." The WS-Management specification is designed to satisfy basic requirements of systems management in terms of web services. It is intended to "(1) constrain Web services protocols and formats so Web services can be implemented in management agents with a small footprint, in both hardware and software; (2) define minimum requirements for compliance without constraining richer implementations; (3) ensure composability with other Web services specifications, such as WS-ReliableMessaging and WS-AtomicTransactions; (4) minimize additional mechanism beyond the current Web service architecture." Namespaces are declared in the WS-Management document for other WS-* specifications, including WS-MetadataExchange, WS-Addressing, WS-Eventing, WS-Enumeration, and WS-Transfer. The participating companies plan to present the WS-Management specification to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) membership, recognizing the DMTF's history of leadership in developing practical management standards based on Web technologies."

• [February 24, 2004] "IBM, Veritas Lead New Utility Computing Standard." By Clint Boulton. In InternetNews.com (February 11, 2004). "A new standards body has been formed to create a method for ensuring the interoperability of utility computing environments using products from different companies, internetnews.com has learned. According to a Distributed Management Task Force document obtained by internetnews.com, the new Utility Computing Working Group is co-chaired by one representative from IBM and VERITAS Software and has a goal of unifying data center management, an integral part of on-demand computing. The work, which will be carried out with the help of standards bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and OASIS, could be seen as IBM's and VERITAS' competitive answer to the Data Center Markup Language (DCML) launched by EDS, Computer Associates, and others last year... Analysts following the space noted that neither IBM nor HP, widely acknowledged as the two biggest on-demand computing players, were involved with DCML. Now, the latest interoperability group appears to be an answer to DCML, as well as another reminder that standards-creation often spurs rivals to line up on opposing sides in the process. 'It sure looks like IBM is pushing its agenda on autonomic computing,' said a source familiar with the utility computing space and the standards process. 'The big difference between this and DCML is that it has big guy sponsorship — is this how IBM expects to drive forward the Web Services Notification and Resource Framework standards that it introduced in January at Global Grid Forum? If so then HP will also be on board with this.' The source said the alignment of the grid standards with the Web services standards is vital to IBM's view of autonomic computing and 'it seems like the GGF can't do it on their own.' The DMTF, which created the Common Information Model (CIM) to describe how management programs will be able to control devices and applications from different vendors in the same way, did not respond to calls seeking comment as of press time..." See: (1) "Opsware and EDS Launch Data Center Markup Language (DCML) for Utility Computing"; (2) "DMTF Common Information Model (CIM)."

• [February 24, 2004] "DMTF Announces New Working Group for Utility Computing. OASIS, GGF and Industry Leaders Join Forces with DMTF to Further Management Standards for Utility Computing." - "Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. today [2004-02-17] announced the formation of the new Utility Computing Working Group, which will create interoperable and common object models for utility computing services within the DMTF's Common Information Model (CIM). Active participants in the working group include Cisco Systems, EMC, HP, IBM, Oracle Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and VERITAS Corporation, with the full support of the DMTF's more than 110 member companies. The DMTF Utility Computing Working Group will operate in close collaboration with other organizations, like the Global Grid Forum (GGF) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) Technical Committee, to develop standards related to utility computing. The result of this collaboration is to unify the industry on a set of highly functional and extensible management interfaces, enabling multiple vendors to interoperate and fulfill customer requirements for greater management automation. Improved multi-vendor integration will ultimately reduce the costs related to the management of IT resources. 'Management plays a central role in utility computing, and DMTF's CIM is already being used to address this space,' said Todd Guay of Oracle Corp., vice president of technology for the DMTF. 'The new DMTF Utility Computing Working Group will bring together the leaders of the industry to develop further improvements to CIM, meeting IT needs in this important and evolving area.' 'This is an important activity and we are excited to see the DMTF bring this group together, while simultaneously tapping related efforts, such as GGF's Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) and several new GGF research groups focused on commercial enterprise Grid application use cases and requirements,' said Charlie Catlett, Senior Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory and Chair of GGF. 'The collaboration will deliver the usability the industry requires, and provide standards that capitalize on existing efforts to deliver the management capabilities that will be essential to creating the tools and frameworks necessary for utility computing.' 'The DMTF is responding to a critical need for usable models and common, interoperable standards for the management industry and now for utility computing,' said Heather Kreger of IBM, co-chair of the OASIS Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) Technical Committee. 'Collaborating with the OASIS WSDM Technical Committee and other groups on standards development will result in standards that converge to address end-to-end management needs. The OASIS WSDM Technical Committee will be appointing liaisons to the DMTF's Utility Computing Working Group, and we look forward to helping meet the needs of the industry through this effort'..." See other details in the WG charter. [cache]

• SNIA Storage Management Initiative Specification. Version 1.0.1. By Steven Peters (Hewlett-Packard), Paul von Behren (Sun Microsystems), and Mike Walker (IBM). 644 pages. "This specification documents a secure and reliable interface that allows storage management systems to identify, classify, monitor, and control physical and logical resources in a Storage Area Network. It describes an object-oriented, XML-based, messaging-based interface designed to support the specific requirements of managing devices in and through Storage Area Networks (SANs)." [cache]

• [March 04, 2003] "Common Information Model: Simplifying Storage Management." By John Mallory (LSILogic.com). In Storage Management Solutions (SMS) Volume 7, Issue 6 (February 2003), pages 64-68. "Storage management is poised to undergo fundamental change over the next few years. The SNIA Storage Management Interface Specification (SMIS)-formerly known as Bluefin-provides, for the first time, the promise of truly interoperable heterogeneous storage network and storage management solutions. SMIS is based upon the Common Information Model (CIM) and Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM); together, CIM and WBEM provide the technological foundation fo SMIS. The first portion of this article will explore the background and concepts of CIM/WBEM, and show how CIM/WBEM technology is used for storage network management. The second portion of this article will discuss the numerous benefits of using CIM/WBEM based technology for storage management... CIM, which is based upon an object-oriented model, provides a uniform data model to define and describe all devices in, and aspects of, an enterprise computing environment. With CIM, each type of device-a storage array, for example-is described in a common and consistent way, irrespective of the vendor and the device architecture... There are two parts to CIM-the CIM specification and the CIM schema. The CIM specification describes CIM's language, naming, high-level concepts and mapping techniques to existing management models (eg, SNMP). The CIM schema provides the detailed modeling descriptions of how to represent devices and the overall managed environment. Taken together, the CIM specification and schema provide a document that consistently and completely describes all aspects of a managed environment. Additionally, the CIM specification and schema provide a comprehensive method for adding vendor unique extensions within the CIM framework, providing for customization while still remaining CIM compliant. The end result is that CIM is a comprehensive model that is updated on a regular basis and provides the flexibility needed for real world management. In parallel with developing and launching CIM, the DMTF launched the Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative. The purpose of the WBEM initiative was to develop a standardized, non-proprietary, environment-independent way to access, share and aggregate management information in a heterogeneous computing environment. WBEM can be though of as an umbrella, unifying several pieces of standard technology into a standardized management model and unified management interface. WBEM is currently comprised of three core components-a data model, the CIM standard; a data encoding and language standard, XML encoding of CIM data; a data transport mechanism, CIM operations over HTTP. CIM, as previously described, provides a common method to model and describe managed objects. XML encoding of CIM data allows CIM data to be presented in the industry standard XML format. CIM operations over HTTP provides an industry standard protocol and platform independent method of transmitting CIM data. WBEM currently relies on these three components to provide a comprehensive standard management interface, but is flexible and extensible enough to incorporate future standards and technologies in a seamless fashion..."

• [February 25, 2003]   OASIS Technical Committee Addresses Management of Web Services.    A new Web Services Distributed Management Technical Committee is being formed by OASIS members. This TC's goal, distinct from that of the Management Protocol TC, is to define web services management. The scope includes using web services architecture and technology to manage distributed resources. Working in alliance with the W3C, the TC will define explicit manageability for the components of the Web Services Architecture (WSA) as defined by the W3C Web Services Architecture Working Group. The new WSDM TC will also develop the model of a web service as a manageable resource. It will collaborate with various other standards groups, including the Distributed Management Task Force (especially with DMTF's technical work groups regarding relevant CIM Schema), and the Global Grid Forum (e.g., OGSA Common Resource Model and OGSI with respect to infrastructure). The WSDM TC will liaise with other OASIS TCs in security- and management-oriented areas. The TC co-chairs are Heather Kreger (IBM) and Winston Bumpus (Novell). The first meeting of the Web Services Distributed Management TC will be held 2-April-2003.

• [October 26, 2002] "EMC Adopts SMI Standard." By Scott Tyler Shafer. In InfoWorld (October 25, 2002). "Hoping to keep momentum alive around its WideSky initiative, EMC has announced it will incorporate open-standards specifications into its developer suite by early next year. The announcement this week follows the development of an industry standards initiative known as the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Storage Management Initiative (SMI), which was previously referred to as the CIM (Common Information Model)/WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise Model)/Bluefin specification. The SMI standard addresses a number of critical enterprise storage concerns in that it allows storage management software platforms, or clients, to discover, collect data from, and manage multivendor devices of all types, called providers, in a SAN. Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC's decision to support open standards in its WideSky platform gives it the capability of collecting data from the SMI-compliant storage devices that are likely to come to market early next year from most vendors after the SMI standard is ratified, which is estimated to happen in March or April. ['the new WideSky Developers Suite now supports two new interfaces: Java Native Interface (JNI) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) along with current support of a C interface. This allows developers to create applications in their choice of industry-standard languages and reduce their time-to-market in introducing new innovative software products'] In the same vein, Burlington, Mass.-based startup AppIQ this week released its own SDK that assists hardware vendors to speed the development of SMI-complaint products... The activity comes as the semi-annual Storage Networking World conference in Orlando, Fla., kicks off next week. Vendors, including Hewlett-Packard, EMC, and AppIQ, will demonstrate a SAN managed through a single management platform built on the SMI standard..." References: (1) "Storage Vendors Announce CIM Product Rollout and Joint Interoperability Testing"; (2) SNIA Storage Management Initiative.

• [October 15, 2002]   Storage Vendors Announce CIM Product Rollout and Joint Interoperability Testing.    Four storage vendors have announced a new coordinated effort "dedicated to the promotion and progress of SNIA's Common Information Model (CIM), Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) technology, and Storage Management Initiative (SMI) specifications for Storage Area Network (SAN)-based storage management. As part of this effort, the four companies are also announcing their individual plans to roll out CIM/WBEM-based products in calendar year 2003. CIM/WBEM has been endorsed by SNIA as the technology to help enable simplified multi-vendor management of storage networks. Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Sun, and VERITAS are active members of SNIA and contributed to drafting the SNIA-adopted Bluefin/SMI specifications. These specifications define how CIM technology is used to manage storage environments. The companies are also actively encouraging all other storage vendors to join them in supporting CIM/WBEM standards. Participating companies would be expected to: (1) Ship CIM/WBEM based storage management software commercially in calendar year 2003; (2) Support the emerging SMI specifications endorsed by SNIA; (3) Make their CIM Providers (SMI Agents) available to others for testing; (4) Conduct joint interoperability testing and qualifications; (5) Support the CIM/WBEM interface as specified by SNIA's Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). The CIM specification is the language and methodology for describing management data; the CIM XML schema includes models for Systems, Applications, Networks (LAN) and Devices." [Full context]

• [October 15, 2002] "Foursome Forms CIM, Bluefin Coalition." By Evan Koblentz. In eWEEK (October 15, 2002). "The storage divisions of IBM, Hitachi Ltd., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Veritas Software Corp. today will announce collective support for the Common Information Model and Bluefin specifications. CIM is an evolving language for storage hardware and software to speak the same management language. Its details, along with the Bluefin implementation standard, are still evolving from the Storage Networking Industry Association's Storage Management Initiative. The four companies are agreeing to three criteria: to promise to ship products that are CIM- and Bluefin-compliant in 2003; to test each other's products together in SNIA plugfests; and to share their CIM provider technology, according to a joint statement to released today. Whereas the Storage Management Initiative exists for development of the actual standards, the new, unnamed coalition exists to actually implement them, according to James Staten, a spokesman for Sun, in Santa Clara, Calif... Missing from the unnamed coalition are Hewlett-Packard Co. and EMC Corp. Steve Jerman, storage management architect for HP and the original CIM author, and EMC's John Tyrell, technology architect, together co-chair SNIA's CIM committee, known as the Disk Resource Management Work Group. 'HP was invited to join but did not do so because we felt that it was totally redundant and potentially confusing, not to mention irrelevant. There already is an alliance to support CIM, and HP does not see the need for anyone to create another,' said HP spokesman Mark Stouse, in Houston..."

• [September 27, 2002] "'Bluefin' to Provide Standard SAN Management Interface." By Roger Reich. In InfoStor Volume 6, Number 9 (September 2002), pages 22-24. "The industry is primed to tackle issues surrounding storage management-one of the top concerns of storage users today. For example, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) recently announced the launch of the Storage Management Initiative (SMI), a program dedicated to developing a storage management standard. At the heart of SMI is the Bluefin specification. The Bluefin specification for storage area network (SAN) management began years ago, when SANs had just emerged and multi-vendor interoperability problems loomed large. At the time, no standard interface existed to allow products from multiple vendors to reliably interoperate for the purpose of monitoring and controlling resources in a storage network. Interface technology at the time (developed primarily for the networking, or "pre-SAN," industry) was unable to provide reliable and secure control of resources in complex, heterogeneous SANs. And no single vendor was capable of driving a de facto interface for SAN management... In 2000, the Partner Development Program (PDP) consortium was established, with 17 member companies: BMC Software, Brocade, Computer Associates, Compaq, Dell, EMC, Emulex, Gadzoox, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, JNI, Prisa Networks, QLogic, StorageTek, Sun, and Veritas. This consortium began work on a specification code-named "Bluefin." The objective was to create a standard that would be transferred to the SNIA for completion. The PDP group embraced a new object-oriented interface technology, called Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), being developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) as a foundation for Bluefin. The object model that will be expressed through the WBEM architecture is an extension of the Common Information Model (CIM), also developed by the DMTF. The Bluefin specification will help to accelerate work completed by the DMTF and SNIA. The SNIA's Disk Resource Management (DRM) Technical Working Group has laid the groundwork for developing CIM/WBEM technology for use in vendor products and held its first public demonstration of storage management using the technology in 1999..." [Note: "The core of Bluefin is an object model, built with the CIM (Common Information Model) standard, and a language binding and protocol solution that employs CIM-XML (CIM operations over HTTP), and SLP. Bluefin goes beyond just specifying the object model and documents what implementations need to do in order to acheive interoperability."]

• [September 27, 2002] "Sun Software Supports CIM." By Lisa Coleman. In InfoStor Volume 6, Number 9 (September 2002), pages 1, 20. "Claiming to be the first systems vendor to offer storage management software based on the Common Information Model (CIM) standard, Sun Microsystems recently released its StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager (ESM) software. ESM rounds out Sun's storage management software line by providing storage area network (SAN) visualization, topology reporting, device configuration, and diagnostics in a centralized platform, according to Steve Guido, product line manager in Sun's network storage product group. But relative to competing products, CIM compliance may be the primary differentiating feature. 'CIM is the basis for all of our open standards work, and it will [afford] long-term customer benefits in terms of scalability and rapidly accelerating device support by providing interoperability among various components in SANs and other topologies,' says Guido. The software is also compliant with the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard and is part of the Sun Open Net Environment (SunONE). Steve Kenniston, an analyst with the Enterprise Storage Group, says that Sun's ESM is on par with other vendors' management software, but differs in its support for the CIM and WBEM standards. 'It has all the features and function sets at a standards-based level to interoperate with not only Sun's management console, but also management consoles from [other vendors]. It really opens up what they'll be able to manage,' says Kenniston... Sun officials cite EMC as their main competitor, while acknowledging that vendors such as BMC Software, IBM, and Veritas also offer some of the same capabilities that ESM provides... Although Sun claims to be the first systems vendor to release CIM-based SAN management software, another company is also claiming to be first with CIM-based management software. StorScape, a joint venture of Eurologic Systems and Hermes SoftLab, is expected to release CIM-based storage management software next month..."

• [August 21, 2002] "Sun Opens Up With Storage Software Suite." By Scott Tyler Shafer . In InfoWorld (August 19, 2002). "Sun Microsystems on Tuesday will throw its hat into the emerging market for heterogeneous SAN management software, claiming to be the first company to offer support for budding open standards for discovering and managing multi-vendor storage devices. The new software suite, dubbed Sun StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager (ESM), was created by combining its existing discrete storage software products with new technology based on evolving storage-specific standards, said James Staten, director of strategy for Sun's Storage division, in Mountain View, Calif. These open standards include CIM (Common Information Model), WEBM (Web-Based Enterprise Management), and the Bluefin specification that was recently submitted to the Storage Networking Industry Association under the name SMI (Storage Management Initiative). SNIA says SMI will be formally submitted to a standards body later this year. The decision to adopt open standards in lieu of exchanging proprietary APIs with competitors and partners was an easy choice, explains Steve Guide, a product line manager for Sun's storage division... Guido explained Tuesday's release of the ESM software suite will feature a way to do topology reporting, device configuration, and proactive health diagnostics. Guido added future releases will support an 'expanding device support list' and automation capabilities via the company's existing StorEdge Utilization Suite & Performance Suite. Staten further explained that the StorEdge Resource Management was created by combining the company's current StorEdge Diagnostic Expert software, StorEdge Resource Management and Availability software, StorEdge Traffic Manager, and StorEdge Utilization Suite & Performance Suite..."

• [August 20, 2002] "Sun Microsystems Delivers New CIM-Compliant San Management Software. Continues To Lead Industry On Storage Open Standards. Complete Storage Management Portfolio Enables Customers to Improve Service Levels and Reduce Total Cost of Ownership." - "Today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced Sun StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager (ESM) software for Storage Area Network (SAN) management. Designed to help lower customers' storage TCO, the new software provides a centralized management platform for viewing and managing storage environments. The 'single pane of glass' incorporates the core management services of SAN topology reporting, device configuration, and proactive health monitoring and diagnostics - helping Sun's customers increase uptime and improve service levels. With the introduction of ESM, Sun is delivering a comprehensive storage management software portfolios in the industry, encompassing SAN and systems management, data continuance, and file and volume management. As the industry's first system vendor to deliver a Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM)-compliant SAN management platform, Sun is demonstrating its leadership in delivering on the demand for simplified SAN management. Unlike proprietary Application Program Interface (API) exchanges conducted by some vendors, standards compliance will enable customers to quickly and easily leverage new storage technologies, products and solutions as they emerge from Sun and other vendors. 'Customers are demanding simpler, integrated and open storage management and Sun is delivering on those demands,' said James Staten, director of Network Storage, Sun Microsystems, Inc. 'Sun's new StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager software combines the three most common storage management tasks into a single pane of glass. By integrating these functions, our customers will see real savings in administration costs and greater uptime as health problems discovered by the diagnostic expert can be acted on immediately without changing tools.' The new Sun StorEdge ESM software is based on the Storage One strategy and is built on the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE). The new software also serves as a key element to Sun's fully integrated, open SAN architecture. Sun has been instrumental in advancing the open WBEM/CIM-based standards for storage management. Working side by side with best-of-breed storage partners like Hitachi Data Systems, Qlogic and Brocade, Sun has achieved a new level of interoperability designed to provide customers with ease of deployment and increased manageability, supportability and scalability..."

• [June 26, 2002] "SAN Management Using CIM and WBEM." By Steve Jerman and John Crandall. In InfoStor Volume 6, Number 6 (June 2002), pages 22-24. ['Two standards may alleviate management headaches for both end users and management software developers.'] "Today, a SAN (storage area network) administrator may have a SAN network management tool, storage resource management (SRM) software, and multiple device-specific management tools. All of these tools have various management interfaces (SNMP, Fibre Channel Services, vendor-specific APIs, etc.), resulting in multiple vendors replicating development work and potentially providing inconsistent and incomplete information to SAN administrators. A promising solution to this problem is an interoperable, open environment for storage management based on the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard and the Common Information Model (CIM), both of which were developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). WBEM ('webem') is a set of standards developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. The DMTF has developed a core set of standards that make up WBEM, including a data model, the CIM standard, an encoding specification using XML, and a transport mechanism using HTTP. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has decided to use WBEM as the basis for a standard SAN management interface. The organization has worked with the DMTF to define the necessary modeling extensions to manage a SAN and all of the storage devices in it WBEM is an XML-based management interface using CIM. WBEM consists of three elements: [1] An object model (CIM); [2] An XML encoding specification (xmlCIM), which is written in Document Type Definition (DTD); xmlCIM defines XML elements representing CIM classes and instances; and [3] A transport mechanism, (CIM Operations over HTTP), which describes how to access a CIM model using xmlCIM over HTTP... Today, the SAN management model includes: Device discovery, Topology, Device configuration, Device statistics, Zoning configuration, Asset management, and Software management... The SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) believes WBEM is a key technology for SAN management. Designed for heterogeneous SAN and storage management, leveraging existing technologies such as XML and HTTP, WBEM can evolve as new transports and protocols come along..." Note in this connection the proposal for an OASIS Management Protocol Technical Committee which would produce a Management Protocol Specification by June 2003; "the proposed initial scope of this committee will be to develop open industry standard management protocols to provide a web-based mechanism to monitor and control managed elements in a distributed environment based on industry accepted management models, methods, and operations, including, OMI, XML, SOAP, DMTF CIM, and DMTF CIM Operations..."

• [September 10, 1999] "Enterprise Management Gets Web Standards." By Guy Middleton. In CMPNet TechWeb News (September 07, 1999). "A key model for enterprise management information has been completed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), the industry body announced Tuesday. The DMTF said the specification would enable cross-vendor interoperability using Internet standards and would cut through the complexity and incompatibility in much of today's management systems. The announcement marked the completion of the group's work on the specifications of a Web-based enterprise management (WBEM) framework, built on what it described as a Common Information Model. The addition of the CIM over the HTTP standard would allow "implementations of CIM to interoperate in an open, standardized manner." The CIM over HTTP specification adds to the existing CIM and CIM over XML standards."

• [June 27, 2000] "Best Practices. CIM is Coming." By Andy Dornan. In Networking Magazine (June 20, 2000). "In the following piece, John W. Cocula, founder and CTO of management software vendor Managed Object Solutions, explains what the Common Information Model (CIM) is, and what network architects should do with it. (The table also chronicles CIM's evolution.) In fact, consultancy firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA, www.enterprisemanagement.com) estimates that the worldwide management software market generates between $30 billion to $60 billion in revenue. Enter the Common Information Model (CIM). Spearheaded by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF, www.dmtf.org), an industry alliance of more than 200 companies, CIM is an architecture designed to eliminate the issue of interoperability between different management systems by unifying multivendor management data through a single interface. The CIM specification is the language and methodology for describing management data and includes models for systems, applications, networks, and devices. CIM is facilitated by the Extensible Markup Language (XML; see the Special Report entitled "XML: HTML Extreme", October 1999). This provides the opportunity to describe information in a common format and common syntax. Enterprises that attempt to use common models can initiate changes in organizational thinking and achieve a high level of process integration. Together, CIM and XML stand poised to launch the next generation of network management... CIM is backed by major industry players, including Compaq Computer, Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Novell, Sunsoft, and Tivoli. It has even been included as a key component of the Windows 2000 OS..."

• [June 15, 1999] "DMTF Reaches Milestones in the Continuing Development of WBEM Technologies. New Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) working group formed at DMTF's Annual Conference to promote the continued development and adoption of DEN." - "Recently completed versions of DMTF specifications include: (1) CIM Specification v2.2: The CIM specification is the language and methodology for describing management data. (2) CIM Schema v2.2: The CIM Schema includes models for enabling applications from different developers on different platforms to describe management data in a standard format. CIM Schema v2.2 now includes models for Logical networks, to complete the DEN model, and Distributed Application Processing (DAP). (3) XML Mapping v2.0 and XML DTD v2.0: The XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Mapping specification defines a standard for the representation of CIM elements and messages in XML. XML Mapping v2.0 now includes additions for HTTP operations."

• [June 08, 1999] Sun to Implement Web-Based Enterprise Management Standards in Solaris Operating Environment. Industry Leaders Applaud Sun's Embrace of Emerging WBEM Standards."

• [January 24, 2000] "Network Management Enters a News Millennium. Will XML Bring New Methods to the Data Madness of Integrated Systems?" By Paul Korzeniowski. In Server/Workstation Expert Volume 11, Number 1 (January 2000), pages 54-59. On DMTF, CIM, and XML.

• [June 08, 1999] "Solaris To Support WBEM Spec." By Jeffrey Schwartz. In InternetWeek (June 08, 1999). "The Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard today will get a boost from Sun. A new release of Sun's Solaris Easy Access Server, slated to ship this summer, will support the Distributed Management Task Force's WBEM specification, a standard for managing systems from applications that support the spec. By adding WBEM support to Solaris, administrators can manage Solaris systems with any WBEM-compliant application or from a Web browser. Sun said it's shipping release of WBEM Solaris Services will also support the XML/HTTP specification, which the DMTF is expected to finalize as early as next week at meeting scheduled to take place in San Jose, Calif. Among other things, XML/HTTP will provide interoperability of management applications by gathering data from both Windows- and Unix-based systems. Without XML, WBEM-enabled applications would have to connect to NT and Solaris servers separately and couldn't interchange data. But by supporting XML, 'I can write a standard management application and point it to an NT server or a Solaris server and manage both in the same way,' Sun's Goguen said. Also by using XML, applications don't have to support competing object languages, notably Microsoft's COM and Sun's Java-based RMI. Rather, service providers take data and store it in the WBEM Common Information Format (CIM) Object Manager. CIM is a DMTF standard that allows the interchange of management data among different systems and platforms."

• [June 15, 1999] "Sun Embraces Standards For Server Management." By Tim Wilson and Jeffrey Schwartz. In InternetWeek Issue 769 (June 14, 1999), pages 1, 55. "Sun Microsystems is making it easier for IT administrators to monitor and control Sun Solaris and Windows NT servers with standards-based management tools. Those same standards will be supported in a repository for Solaris management information. Sun will deliver these capabilities by supporting in Solaris the Distributed Management Task Force's Web-Based Enterprise Management guidelines. WBEM defines standards for formatting, storing and exchanging systems and network management information. DMTF is a consortium that includes Sun, as well as competitors Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft. A key element of Solaris WBEM Services is support for the XML/HTTP specification, which will let management applications work equally well with Unix or Windows clients. XML/HTTP defines a method for encoding management data in XML and transmitting it via HTTP. The specification could be finalized at this week's meeting of the DMTF. XML also eliminates the need for management vendors to choose between competing object languages such as Microsoft's COM and Sun's Java-based RMI."

• [May 24, 1999] "DMTF to Hone Web Management." By Paul Krill. In InfoWorld Volume 21, Issue 21 (May 24, 1999). The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), which boasts players such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard among its members, plans to release a proposed standard in June for using HTTP to exchange system and network management data over the Web. The DMTF, formerly the Desktop Management Task Force, also plans to define parts of a network management-related schema pertaining to the Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) initiative. Previously detailed components of WBEM include the Desktop Management Interface, for remote management of multiplatform desktops and servers, and the Common Information Model, providing a common understanding of data across different management systems. An Extensible Markup Language (XML) -based mechanism for exchanging management data within WBEM was announced in September 1998.

• [October 19, 1998] Press release: "DMTF Promotes Use of eXtensible Markup Language -- XML -- for Standards-based Management Solutions. DMTF WBEM Effort Ties Management and Web Technologies Together." - "The Desktop Management Task Force Inc. (DMTF) announced today v1.0 of its XML Encoding Specification for the encoding of the Common Information Model (CIM) schema in XML." [local archive copy]

• DTD version 1.0 - defines the schema for XML 1.0 Documents representing CIM classes and instances; [local archive copy]

• XML Encodings for CIM Schema v2.0.1; [local archive copy]

• XML Mapping Specification v1.0. "Specification for the Representation of CIM in XML." Version 1.0, September 15th, 1998. [local archive copy]

• XML Whitepaper. "XML As a Representation for Management Information." Version 1.0, September 15th, 1998. [local archive copy]

• XSLStyle Sheet - Generates MOF

• XSLStyle Sheet - Generates HTML for Browsing

• [June 28, 1999] "CIM Creeps Ever Closer. The Common Information Model is already paying dividends, but more vendors need to get on board." By Elisabeth Horwitt. In Network World (June 21, 1999). "What makes all this possible is the Common Information Model (CIM), a key part of the Desktop Management Task Force's Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) blueprint for unified administration. CIM is a set of schemas for describing and sharing enterprisewide management information. In addition to CIM, WBEM includes these elements: (1) XML, a standardized structure for presenting and structuring management information in Web page format. XML will let management applications dynamically share CIM data. (2) HTTP for common transport of management information. (3) Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, which defines a directory infrastructure for storing and accessing management information."

• [January 15, 1999] "CIM-plifying Net Management." By Jeff Caruso. In Network World Volume 16, Number 2 (January 11, 1999), page 23. "Common Information Model tools could change the way enterprises are administered. Coupled with Extensible Markup Language (XML), CIM could become a way to share management data using Web technology. . . Last August, the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) specified how to represent CIM data in an XML document. XML is a way of representing structured data, much like HTML is a way of describing a text document. The next step for the DMTF is to specify how to get information from and put information into a CIM database using XML. The group plans to finish that specification by March [1999]."

• "DMTF's profile grows with control of WBEM." By Emily Fitzloff in InfoWorld Electric (June 05, 1998), page 10.

• "DMTF Accepts WBEM Initiative. Ownership of the WBEM initiative by DMTF is aimed at broadening support for Interoperable Management Technologies." - "The DMTF will utilize current WBEM technologies as it continues to develop its standards, including its development of the CIM event model, query mechanisms to CIM, and XML encodings for CIM objects."

• WBEM Announcement FAQ