Net/Systems Management /

Building a common management model

By Fred Engel
Network World, 02/22/99

Today's IT professionals are struggling with the very network management tools that are supposed to make their lives easier.

Standards efforts are under way to fix that problem. The Desktop Management Task Force's Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative includes several industry specifications, and WBEM's Common Information Model (CIM) is the most promising.

Diagram of how it works

CIM represents an attempt to portray the topology of any system in a common manner. The idea behind CIM is to help IT managers understand the physical relationships machines in a network have with each other. The goal is to more easily resolve and prevent network problems while proactively conducting strategic capacity and performance planning. While CIM addresses physical relationships, there is currently no parallel initiative to address better tracking and understanding of logical connections.

CIM is an object model for describing and sharing enterprisewide management information. As with all object-oriented models, CIM has several layers. The base models are low-level generic "housekeeping" definitions. The common model is slightly more specific to management, defining managed objects, systems and application objects. The real value of the definitions comes in the form of concrete models that represent common computer systems - such as desktops, servers and printers - as well as network devices, including routers and switches.

CIM definitions are written in Universal Modeling Language (UML). The CIM model supports physical and logical representations of network components, including everything from chassis and fans to applications and topologies. It is possible to move UML definitions with almost any protocol. However, the task force has standardized on Extensible Markup Language as the standard encoding technology for object definitions, as well as for their property and data values. This information can be exchanged between CIM-enabled agents and managers and between managers themselves.

If successful, CIM will provide an easy way for IT professionals to import and share information from different vendors. CIM delivers common topology information and common naming information so that everything is uniquely identified within the network, regardless of vendor and physical technology.

CIM has caught fire recently as a rallying point for many key networking players, including BMC Software, Cisco, Compaq, Computer Associates, Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, NetIQ and Tivoli Systems.

Recently, Cisco announced its CiscoWorks2000 initiative, using CIM as the linchpin. In rolling out the new Web-based effort, Cisco cited tremendous pressure from its network clientele to better integrate multivendor applications.

Shortcomings

But as with most new standards, shortcomings will not be obvious until real implementations are in place. For example, CIM lends itself to common names, but will network management applications take advantage of this ability so that all names are the same? CIM also appears to have a very static set of topology definitions. Will these definitions easily fit into the world of dynamic network topologies, and will they accommodate the software relationships of applications to nodes? These are real problems that will need to be solved, and hopefully CIM is the first step in that direction.

More important, despite all the favorable press, to date there has been only limited deployment of the CIM standard. Thus, there is no immediate value to IT managers. The success of CIM depends on its widespread availability in products from most, if not all, of the core networking vendors on which users rely. This is where users need to vote with their dollars and pressure their vendors to embrace such standards.

Building a common management model

Shortcomings

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