Web-Based Enterprise Management - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is a set of systems management

Systems management

Systems management refers to enterprise-wide administration of distributed systems including computer systems. Systems management is strongly influenced by network management initiatives in telecommunications....

technologies developed to unify the management of distributed computing environments. WBEM is based on Internet standard

Internet standard

In computer network engineering, an Internet Standard is a normative specification of a technology or methodology applicable to the Internet. Internet Standards are created and published by the Internet Engineering Task Force .-Overview:...

s and Distributed Management Task Force

Distributed Management Task Force

Distributed Management Task Force is an industry organization that develops, maintains and promotes standards for systems management in enterprise IT environments. These standards allow for building systems management infrastructure components in a platform-independent and technology-neutral way...

(DMTF) open standard

Open standard

An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....

s: Common Information Model

Common Information Model (computing)

The Common Information Model is an open standard that defines how managed elements in an IT environment are represented as a common set of objects and relationships between them...

(CIM) infrastructure and schema, CIM-XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

, CIM operations over HTTP, and WS-Management

WS-Management

Web Services-Management is a DMTF open standard defining a SOAP-based protocol for the management of servers, devices, applications and various Web services. The DMTF has published the standards document DSP0226 with version v1.1.0 of 2010-03-03....

. Although the name refers to WBEM as being "Web-Based", it is not necessarily tied in any way to a particular user interface (see below). Other systems management approaches are remote shell

Remote Shell

The remote shell is a command line computer program that can execute shell commands as another user, and on another computer across a computer network.The remote system to which rsh connects runs the rshd daemon...

s, proprietary solutions and network management

Network management

Network management refers to the activities, methods, procedures, and tools that pertain to the operation, administration, maintenance, and provisioning of networked systems....

architectures like SNMP

Simple Network Management Protocol

Simple Network Management Protocol is an "Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP networks. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks, and more." It is used mostly in network management systems to monitor...

Features

Key features of WBEM technology include:

remote management of applications
management of several instances of an application as a single unit
standard interface for remote application management across different applications
decoupling of application management from the client
"publishing" of key information about an application to other applications

Architecture

To understand the WBEM architecture, consider the components which lie between the operator trying to manage a device (configure it, turn it off and on, collect alarms, etc.) and the actual hardware and software of the device:

the operator will presumably be presented with some form of graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

(GUI), browser user interface (BUI), or command line interface (CLI). The WBEM standard really has nothing to say about this interface (although a CLI for specific applications is being defined): in fact it is one of the strengths of WBEM that it is independent of the human interface since human interfaces can be changed without the rest of the system needing to be aware of the changes.
the GUI, BUI or CLI will interface with a WBEM client through a small set of application programming interface
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

s (API). This client will find the WBEM server for the device being managed (typically on the device itself) and construct an XML message with the request.
the client will use the HTTP (or HTTPS
Https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server...

) protocol to pass the request, encoding in CIM-XML, to the WBEM server
the WBEM server will decode the incoming request, perform the necessary authentication and authorization checks and then consult the previously-created model of the device being managed to see how the request should be handled. This model is what makes the architecture so powerful: it represents the pivot point of the transaction with the client simply interacting with the model and the model interacting with the real hardware or software. The model is written using the Common Information Model standard and the DMTF has published many models for commonly-managed devices and services: IP routers
Multilayer switch
A multilayer switch is a computer networking device that switches on OSI layer 2 like an ordinary network switch and provides extra functions on higher OSI layers.- Layer 3 Switching :...

, storage servers
File server
In computing, a file server is a computer attached to a network that has the primary purpose of providing a location for shared disk access, i.e. shared storage of computer files that can be accessed by the workstations that are attached to the computer network...

, desktop computer
Desktop computer
A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Early desktop computers are designed to lay flat on the desk, while modern towers stand upright...

s, etc.
for most operations, the WBEM server determines from the model that it needs to communicate with the actual hardware or software. This is handled by so-called "providers": small pieces of code which interface between the WBEM server (using a standardised interface known as CMPI) and the real hardware or software. Because the interface is well-defined and the number of types of call is small, it is normally easy to write providers. In particular, the provider writer knows nothing of the GUI, BUI, or CLI being used by the operator.

WBEM specifications

Mappings
- URI
  Uniform Resource Identifier
  In computing, a uniform resource identifier is a string of characters used to identify a name or a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network using specific protocols...
  
  (WBEM URI Mapping Specification 1.0)
- XML
  XML
  Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
  
  (Representation of CIM using XML 1.2; CIM DTD 1.2)
- XML Schema (under development)
Protocols
- CIM-XML (CIM Operations over HTTP 1.2)
- CLP (Command Line Protocol 1.0)
- WSDM (under development)
- WS-Management
  WS-Management
  Web Services-Management is a DMTF open standard defining a SOAP-based protocol for the management of servers, devices, applications and various Web services. The DMTF has published the standards document DSP0226 with version v1.1.0 of 2010-03-03....
  
  (under development)
Discovery
- SLP
  Service Location Protocol
  The Service Location Protocol is a service discovery protocol that allows computers and other devices to find services in a local area network without prior configuration. SLP has been designed to scale from small, unmanaged networks to large enterprise networks...
  
  (WBEM Discovery using SLP; SLP Template)
Query Language
- CQL (CIM Query Language 1.0)

Implementing support

So, which pieces of this does a device manufacturer or service provider have to write?

Firstly the model.

This is normally done by extending as necessary one of the standard models published by the DMTF.

Then the BUI, GUI, or CLI.

The client and server usually do not need to be written because there are many open-source and commercial implementations available (see External links below)

Then the providers

In summary, the WBEM architecture allows the manufacturer of a device or developer of a service to provide a standards-compliant management interface to that device simply and cheaply.

WBEM in operating systems

Apple Inc. uses an implementation of WBEM in its Apple Remote Desktop
Apple Remote Desktop
Apple Remote Desktop is a Macintosh application produced by Apple Inc., first released on March 14, 2002, that replaced a similar product called Apple Network Assistant...

management tool, and Mac OS X clients ship with support for Remote Management.
Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...

has adopted the OpenWBEM open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

implementation of WBEM and includes it in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux distributions
SUSE Linux is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making...
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

has developed the WMI
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation is a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification...

technology and has included it in Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

has created WBEM-Services for the Solaris operating environment: Solaris WBEM Services
Hewlett Packard has included WBEM Services CORE Product in the HP-UX
HP-UX
HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...

operating system (with all operating environments) since version 11iv1
Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

ships OpenPegasus as part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...
Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...

ships with an updated CIM instrumentation stack, powered by the latest version of the lightweight CIMOM, SBLIM SFCB.

WBEM implementations

WBEM Solutions
Open Pegasus, open-source client and server written in C++
OpenWBEM, open-source client and server written in C++
WBEM Services, Java
SBLIM Standards Based Linux Instrumentation for Manageability, C, C++, Java
PyWBEM, open-source WBEM library written in Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
Purgos, open-source management client for Windows written C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

(Product now discontinued and has reached End Of Life)

External links

Standards
- Official WBEM page at DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force), including standards documents
- DMTF FAQ on WBEM
Implementations
Other Resources

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