CIM (Common Information Model) is a common data model of an implementation-neutral schema for describing overall management information in a network/enterprise environment. CIM is comprised of a Specification and a Schema. The Specification defines the details for integration with other management models (i.e., SNMP's MIBs or the DMTF's MIFs), while the Schema provides the actual model descriptions.
DMI generates a standard framework for managing and tracking components in a desktop pc, notebook or server. DMI is currently the only desktop standard in adoption for today's pc's. The DMI Home Page is a repository of all DMI-related information from the specification to tools to support to the Product Registry of DMI-certified products.
The DMTF has worked closely with the Customer Support Consortium in the joint development of standards for customer support and helpdesk applications by providing common data models for incident and solution exchange.
Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. WBEM provides the ability for the industry to deliver a well-integrated set of standard-based management tools leveraging the emerging Web technologies. The DMTF has developed a core set of standards that make up WBEM, which includes a data model, the Common Information Model (CIM) standard; an encoding specification, xmlCIM Encoding Specification; and a transport mechanism, CIM Operations over HTTP.
The CIM specification is the language and methodology for describing management data. The CIM schema includes models for Systems, Applications, Networks (LAN) and Devices. The CIM schema will enable applications from different developers on different platforms to describe management data in a standard format so that it can be shared among a variety of management applications. The xmlCIM Encoding Specification defines XML elements, written in Document Type Definition (DTD), which can be used to represent CIM classes and instances. The CIM Operations over HTTP specification defines a mapping of CIM operations onto HTTP that allows implementations of CIM to interoperate in an open, standardized manner and completes the technologies that support WBEM.
This specification (the Alert Standard Forum specification) defines remote control and alerting interfaces that best serve clients' OS-absent environments.
The Directory Enabled Network (DEN) specification is designed to provide the building blocks for more intelligent networks by mapping users to network services, and mapping business criteria to the delivery or network services. This will enable applications and services to transparently leverage network infrastructure on behalf of the user, empower end-to-end services, and support distributed network-wide service creation, provisioning and management.
The Printer MIB Working Group is chartered to develop a set of managed objects for networked printers. These objects will be the minimum necessary to provide the ability to monitor and control these systems, providing fault, configuration and performance management, and will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.
This working group will create the standards necessary to deploy a schema listing service.
In order to achieve the goal of interoperable directory services, implementors must agree on standard object classes and attribute types. There are a growing number of places where schema for Internet Directory Services and Internet Operations are being defined. This plethora of schemas makes interoperation difficult, but is unavoidable. A listing service providing a single point of discovery for white-pages schema will promote schema reuse, reduce duplication of effort, and thus promote directory service interoperability.
The AToM MIB Working Group is chartered to evaluate RFC 1695, a Proposed Standard, with respect to the standards track. As a part of its evaluation, the AToM MIB Working Group may also define additional sets of managed objects, to reflect growing experience and industry requirements for management of:
The Frame Relay Service MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects which will be useful for customer network management of a provider's Frame Relay Service. The working group will consider existing definitions, including the Frame Relay Forum's work in this area. The objects defined by the working group will be consistent with the SNMP framework.
The Interfaces MIB working group is reactivated and chartered to accomplish one task: to prepare a recommendation to the IESG evaluating RFC 1573 with respect to the standards track.
The ADSL Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects to be used for management of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line services as defined by ANSI T1.413. The initial effort will define those management objects common to all ADSL lines regardless of line-code.
The Bridge MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects that instrument devices that conform to the IEEE 802.1 standard for MAC-layer bridges.
This set of objects should be largely compliant with (and even draw from) IEEE 802.1(b), although there is no requirement that any specific object be present or absent.
The MIB object definitions produced will be for use by SNMP and will be consistent with other SNMP objects, standards, and conventions.
This working group is chartered to standardize a set of managed objects representing logical and physical entities and the relationships between them. Logical entities can occur when a single agent supports multiple instances of one MIB, such as RFCs 1253, 1493, 1516 or 1525, where each instance represents a single (logical) device/entity. Physical entities are the actual physical components on which the logical entities operate; typically, the physical components exist in a hierarchy. The set of objects will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.
The scope of the defined managed objects should allow an NMS to interrogate a standard SNMP context and thereby discover what logical and physical entities exist, how to access the MIB information of each logical entity, and the relationships between the various entities. The MIB should support both a single agent or multiple agents in one physical entity. The Working Group should adopt a minimalist approach for the (initial) MIB so as to maximize the chance of success, e.g., read-only.
The Ethernet Interfaces and Hub MIB WG is Chartered to define a set of managed objects that instrument devices (repeaters, MAUs, interfaces) that conform to the IEEE 802.3 standard for Ethernet.
This set of objects should be largely compliant with, and even draw from IEEE 802.3, although there is no requirement that any specific object be present or absent.
The MIB object definitions produced will be for use by SNMP and will be adequately consistent with other SNMP objects, standards and conventions.
The goals of this working group are:
The managed objects should provide sufficient information to allow a management workstation to navigate across a set of agents in order to learn the topology of arbitrarily large networks, and these objects should be as independent as possible from the specific underlying networking media which comprise the network. These objects will be the minimum necessary to provide the ability to support the physical topology discovery, and will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.
In defining these objects, it is anticipated that the working group will leverage existing work for representing port-based information, such as in the Repeater MIB (RFC 1516 or later) and may also leverage work in the entity MIB for describing logical and physical relationships.
The working group will define the general requirements for topology mechanisms in order to support the proposed MIB. It will also identify existing topology mechanisms for common LAN media types and may propose new topology mechanisms for LAN media types where required. It is a goal of the common topology MIB to allow the use of either standard or proprietary topology mechanisms within the underlying media.
At this time, it is not a goal of the working group to support the collection or representation of logical topology information, such as VLAN configuration or subnet structure. It is anticipated that this could be an area for future work items, so some consideration will be given to extensibility of the models and to the MIB. However, this consideration must not be allowed to impede progress on the primary focus of physical connectivity.
The RMON MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects for remote monitoring of networks. These objects will be the minimum necessary to provide the ability to monitor multiple network layers of traffic in remote networks; providing fault, configuration, and performance management, and will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.
The working group will consider existing MIB modules that define objects which support similar management, e.g., RFC 1271 and RFC 1513 and efforts in other areas, e.g., the accounting and operational statistics activities. It is possible that this RMON will not be backwards compatible with existing RMON RFCs, but the reasons for any such incompatibility will be well documented.
The following list of features for this RMON has been previously discussed in relation to existing RMON functionality and is included to focus these RMON activities. It is recognized that other issues may be considered and that certain of the following issues may not be part of the final specification:
The DLSw MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects for devices that support Data Link Switching (DLSw) version 1. DLSw is a method for encapsulating SNA (System Network Architecture) or NetBIOS (Network Basic Input Output Services) traffic in TCP/IP. DLSw is intended to aid in the transport of SNA and NetBIOS traffic across WANs. The objects will be the minimum necessary to provide the ability to monitor and control DLSw devices, supporting fault isolation, configuration and performance management. The set of objects will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.
The working group will consider existing enterprise-specific MIB modules that define objects which support management of these devices.
The working group recognizes that managed objects for later versions of DLSw may need to be identified in the future. These objects are out of scope for the current (i.e., 1995) charter; however, once the working group completes its charter, a new charter identifying some or all of these components may be considered.
The SNA DLC Services MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects for the SDLC and LLC-2 data link controls for SNA networks. These objects will be the minimum necessary to provide the ability to monitor and control those devices, providing fault, configuration, and performance management, and will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.
The working group will consider existing enterprise-specific MIB modules that define objects which support management of these devices. The group may choose to consider any work done by the IEEE in the area of managed object definition for LLC-2. It will also make sure that its work is aligned with the SNA NAU Services MIB Working Group, due to the close relationship between the devices being worked on by the two groups.
The working group recognizes that managed objects for other SNA data link controls and related components (e.g., QLLC, System/370 Channel, Data Link Switching, and ESCON) may need to be identified in the future. These objects are out of scope for the current charter; however, once the group completes its charter, a new charter identifying some or all of these components may be considered.