The Common Information Model (CIM) defines an industry standard that is being developed by consortia members of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). It provides a common definition of management information for systems, networks, applications, and services; and it allows for vendor extensions.

CIM is composed of a specification and a schema. The specification defines the details for integration with other management models, and the schema provides the actual model descriptions. These schemas are written by the DMTF in a language called Managed Object Format (MOF).

The schema works well for CIM providers implemented for OpenPegasus, an open-source implementation of the DMTF CIM and WBEM standards. This implemented module is called a CIM Object Manager (CIMOM). It is designed to be portable and highly modular and runs today on most versions of UNIX®, Linux®, OpenVMS, and Microsoft Windows®. Other organizations can implement CIMOM, such as Sun's Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), IBM® Small FootPrint CIM Broker (SFCB),and Windows Management Instrumentation Adapter (WMI+A). In this case, the CIM Provider developer must develop different providers for different CIMOMs. To reduce the overhead required for developing and maintaining different versions of CIM Provider for various CIMOMs, a Common Manageability Programming Interface (CMPI) standard evolved. TheCMPI standard provides a common interface for developing a CIM provider. Consequently, a CIM provider implemented using this interface works with any CIMOM supporting CMPI.

Currently, an MOF schema used for a CIM provider implementation for WMI+A requires manual changes, which can be time consuming and prone to errors. CIM Schema Converter uses the downloaded CIM schema as input for generating a schema that is compatible with WMI+A. This automation reduces processing time and minimizes errors.

How does it work?

CIM Schema Converter works with Java™ 1.5 or above. It uses Java APIs for string manipulations and regular expressions. This tool works for all the schema versions released by the DMTF (2.11 to 2.18).

Implementation details are as follows:

• A folder containing MOF files is taken as input from the user either as a command line argument or by using a file chooser. A single file can also be selected.
• Each MOF file in the folders is parsed one line at a time.
• Each line is stored in a temporary string and required changes are made to it.
• A new file is created at the location specified by the user (if no output path is selected, then the default path (/DMTFWIN) is used).

CIM Schema Converter provides both Graphical User Interface (GUI) based and Command Line Interface (CLI) support.

The tool can be used in the following way:

1. Download the CIM schema from the DMTF Web site.
2. Give the CIM schema as input to this tool and select a location where you want to save the converted MOF files, which will be compatible with WMI+A.

Venkatesh Kumar is a staff software engineer with about four and a half years of experience in information technology (IT). He joined IBM as system software engineer in April 2007 and currently works with the Vendor Relation Team (VRT). VRT is part of ISTL (India Systems and Technology Lab) and deals with storage products and vendors. Mr. Kumar has been working with various IBM vendors on their development of external RAID controllers for IBM servers. This work involves helping vendors on development of SMI-S profiles defined in SMIS specification; designing the Managed Object Format (MOF); working on end-to-end defect management; validating the implemented provider by vendors; improving the performance and quality of the product; making sure the vendor follows open standards; and coordinating with various teams to ensure smooth integration of vendor products with IBM products. Storage Configuration Manager (SCM) and IBM Director heavily use these vendor providers.