Dell Intel PRO Family of Adapters - Manual (Page 4)

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Common Information Model (CIM Schema)
The Common Information Model (CIM) presents a consistent and unified view of all types of logical and physical objects in a
managed environment. Managed objects are represented using object-oriented constructs such as classes. The classes
include properties that describe data and methods that describe behavior. The CIM is designed by the DMTF to be operating
system and platform independent. The WBEM technology includes an extension of the CIM for the Microsoft Windows
operating system platforms. Please refer to the DMTF CIM schema on DMTF web site for more information.
The CIM defines three levels of classes:
Classes representing managed objects that apply to all areas of management. These classes provide a basic vocabulary
for analyzing and describing managed systems and are part of what is referred to as the core model.
Classes representing managed objects that apply to a specific management area but are independent of a particular
implementation or technology. These classes are part of what is referred to as the common model.
Classes representing managed objects that are technology-specific additions to the common model. These classes
typically apply to specific platforms such as UNIX or the Microsoft Win32 environment, referred to as the extended
model.
All classes can be related by inheritance, where a child class includes data and methods from its parent class. Inheritance
relationships are not typically visible to the management application using them, nor are the applications required to know the
inheritance hierarchy. Class hierarchies can be obtained using applications that are included in the WMI Tools (see the WMI
Tools at http://www.microsoft.com for more information).
Windows Management also supports association classes. Association classes link two different classes to model a user-defined
relationship, and are visible to management applications. Windows Management defines association classes to support system
classes. Third-party developers can also define association classes for their management environment.
WBEM supports the concept of schemas to group the classes and instances that are used within a particular management
environment. The Platform SDK includes two schemas: the CIM schema and the Microsoft Win32 schema. The CIM schema
contains the class definitions for the first two levels of the CIM. These classes represent managed objects that are part of
every management environment regardless of platform. The Win32 schema contains class definitions for managed objects
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