Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (
More info?)
Richard G. Harper wrote:
> WBEM is not any such thing. I'd suggest that you need to study the topic a
> bit more.
First of all (after noting the way you responded to
anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com), understand that *I'm* not a
programmer or MVP. I do the best I can to figure things out. I do
however, work on all of my friends' and relatives' computers and so far
I'm batting 1000 as far as dealing with all problems thrown at me. The
following is a summarization of my experiences and what I've found after
a lot of looking around on the internet. I welcome constructive criticism...
My assertion still stands that WBEM is *primarily* a tool used by system
administrators to manage networked computers. This is born out by
Microsoft itself at this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/wmi/WMI-intro.mspx
Note that also according to that site, "Windows Management
Instrumentation" (WMI) *is* an implementation of WBEM for Microsoft
Windows operating systems; when you talk about WMI, you are referring to
MS's implementation of WBEM for Windows.
*HOWEVER*..... WBEM is also used by at least one PC Health module for
providing system information, the individual components of PC Health in
Windows Millennium being:
1. Help and Support (which includes Assisted Support)
2. Automatic Update
3. System File Protection
4. System Restore.
According to this (found, I forget where):
"Microsoft plans to include CIM (note from John Corliss: CIM is an
acronym for 'Common Information Model' - see the definition of WBEM
further on down in this post for more information about CIM) in the
upcoming consumer release of Windows, the Millennium Edition, for
customer support. When a user contacts a technician with a problem, the
technician can get information about that user's computer and
applications through CIM."
information via WBEM supplements the Remote Call Procedure (RCP) used by
MS's support technicians when you call them through "Assisted Support"
(the first component listed above.)
As an aside, an interesting transcript of an MS webcast overview of PC
Health in Millennium Edition is here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fservicedesks%2Fwebcasts%2Fen%2Fwc052300%2Fwct052300.asp
(link may wrap)
One can see that the original goals were noble. However, experience has
shown the whole concept to be rife with security holes. Historically,
pretty much every aspect of PC Health has been attacked or exploited by
virus or Trojan writers, or other hackers.
But back to the main topic of my post:
I don't know if WBEM is used by any of the remaining PC Health
components and would appreciate some clarification about whether or not
this is the case. I would also be very interested in knowing what other
uses MS possibly had in mind for having the module installed by default.
Along those lines, check out this page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/logging_wmi_activity.asp
(link may wrap)
If there's no system administrator for a free standing computer running
Millennium Edition, then are there any logs created? Does Microsoft
consider all of its customers to be merely workstations on some huge
fictional network of its own design and control? If this is the case,
then you can count me out! I can and do run Windows Update manually.
On the other hand it appears that Help and Support's System Information
wouldn't work if I remove WBEM, so _there is the reason_ I was looking
for not to do so. In fact now that I think of it, somebody once told me
that I shouldn't remove Wmiexe.exe because this would be the case. Since
Beta 10 lists both WBEM and Wmiexe.exe as being separately removable via
its useage, I mistakenly thought that they were two entirely different
items.
Now I know differently.
As for the definition of WBEM itself, here are a couple of descriptions
of what it is from various internet sites:
_____________________________
What is WBEM?
Web Based Enterprise Management is an Industry initiative to provide
management of systems, networks, users and applications across multiple
vendor environments. WBEM simplifies system management, providing better
access to both software and hardware data that is readable by WBEM
compliant applications.
WBEM has been designed to be compatible with all the major existing
management protocols, including SNMP, DMI, and CMIP. WBEM is a DMTF
standard. Industry standards used in the WBEM initiative include:
_____________________________
What Is WBEM?
In 1996, BMC Software, Cisco Systems, Compaq Computer, Intel, and
Microsoft sponsored the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM)
initiative, an effort to provide a unifying mechanism for describing and
sharing management information. Now more than 70 companies publicly
support WBEM, including Computer Associates, IBM/Tivoli, and HP.
Administrators of systems running on multiple platforms currently
have no easy way to obtain management data from their different
platforms. They must use individual APIs or a separate console for each
management application. However, WBEM can provide one interface to
multiple platforms because it's independent of the different languages,
execution environments, and user interfaces (UIs) those platforms use to
host management applications. WBEM defines a common mechanism for
sharing management information, but it doesn't dictate how vendors
implement management solutions. WBEM does not require the use of a
runtime environment or programming language model, nor does it mandate
the use of any particular management application, console, operating
system (OS), or graphical environment. WBEM provides a consistent view
of managed environments without locking customers in to one management
framework, protocol, or platform.
Two main goals motivated WBEM's founders to create this
cross-platform management technology. First, they needed to standardize
the publishing of management data. To achieve this goal, the Desktop
Management Task Force (DMTF) adopted a standardized data model called
the Common Information Model (CIM) in 1997. CIM is an object-oriented
schema for describing a system's management objects. It offers one
extensible data description mechanism for all enterprise systems,
network devices, and other management tools such as applications,
peripherals, and databases. CIM supports data inheritance and
associations and is independent of any execution environment or
programming language model. You can use CIM to describe objects that you
implement in Java, distributed component object model (DCOM), Common
Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), or any other object environment.
Second, WBEM's founders needed a standard method for accessing
management information. Previously, administrators had to use customized
API calls and software designed specifically for each environment that
they wanted to access management data from. WBEM provides one method for
accessing management data that originates from disparate sources.
Figure A (http://www.win2000mag.com/Files/3568/Figure_01.html) shows
the general WBEM architecture. The bottom of Figure A shows various
sources of management data that WBEM can use, including Windows
Management Interface (WMI), Desktop Management Interface (DMI), and
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). The next level shows the CIM
Object Provider, which acts as a translation layer for the CIM Object
Manager (CIMOM). The CIMOM handles the interactions between CIM,
management applications, and the CIM Object Provider. In addition, the
CIMOM handles security, event registration, and notification services.
At the top of Figure A, Management Application includes any application
that uses management data to provide value to users, such as a central
management console or a central management data repository.
The original WBEM specification proposed that HyperMedia Management
Protocol (HMMP) serve as the standard protocol for publishing and
accessing data. Although HMMP is part of the WBEM specification at press
time, I expect WBEM organizers to get rid of HMMP in the near future and
adopt Extensible Markup Language (XML) instead. (For the latest
information about WBEM, visit http://wbem.freerange.com.)
_____________________________
--
Regards from John Corliss
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