Originally an initiative of Microsoft, Intel and others, WBEM was passed over to the DMTF in 1998. DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force, Inc., Hillsboro, OR, www.dmtf.org ) is an industry consortium founded in 1992 that is involved with the development, support and maintenance of management standards initially for PCs, but is now involved for all aspects of the enterprise. Its goal is to reduce the cost and complexity of enterprise management. Focusing initially on the DMI standard, the DMTF is involved with other management technologies, including WBEM/CIM and DEN. The DMTF was originally the Desktop Management Task Force.
Glossary of terms
MIB (Management Information Base) is an SNMP structure that describes the particular device being monitored.
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is a widely used network monitoring and control protocol. Data is passed from SNMP agents, which are hardware and/or software processes reporting activity in each network device (hub, router, bridge, etc.), to the workstation console used to oversee the network. The agents return information contained in a MIB (Management Information Base), which is a data structure that defines what is obtainable from the device and what can be controlled (turned off, on, etc.). Originating in the UNIX community, SNMP has become widely used on all major platforms.
SNMP 2 provides enhancements including security and an RMON (Remote Monitoring) MIB, which provides continuous feedback without having to be queried by the SNMP console.
MIF (Management Information Format) is a DMI file format that describes a hardware or software component used in a PC. It can contain data, code or both.
DMI (Desktop Management Interface) is a management system for systems developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). DMI provides a bi-directional path to interrogate all the hardware and software components within a system. When systems are DMI-enabled, their hardware and software configurations can be monitored from a central station in the network.
DEN (Directory Enabled Network) is a DMTF initiative designed to provide enhanced management building blocks by mapping concepts from CIM (such as systems, services and policies) to a directory, and integrating this information with other WBEM elements in the management infrastructure. Originally an initiative from Microsoft and Cisco, DEN was turned over to the DMTF in 1998.
MOF (Managed Object Format) is a text-based representation of CIM objects (definitions and instances). MOF is the WBEM parallel to MIB for SNMP and MIF for DMI.
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