About the CIM Object Manager

The CIM Object Manager manages CIM objects on a WBEM-enabled system. A CIM object is a representation, or model, of a managed resource, such as a printer, disk drive, or CPU. CIM objects are stored internally as Java classes.

When a WBEM client application accesses information about a CIM object, the CIM Object Manager contacts either the appropriate provider for that object or the CIM Object Manager Repository. Providers are classes that communicate with managed objects to access data. When a WBEM client application requests data from a managed resource that is not available from the CIM Object Manager Repository, the CIM Object Manager forwards the request to the provider for that managed resource. The provider dynamically retrieves the information.

At startup, the CIM Object Manager performs the following functions:

• Listens for RMI connections on RMI port 5987 and for XML/HTTP connections on HTTP port 80

• Sets up a connection to the CIM Object Manager Repository

• Waits for incoming requests

During normal operations, the CIM Object Manager performs these functions:

• Performs security checks to authenticate user login and authorization to access namespaces.

• Performs syntactical and semantic checking of CIM data operations to ensure that they comply with the latest CIM Specification.

• Routes requests to the appropriate provider or to the CIM Object Manager Repository.

• Delivers data from providers and from the CIM Object Manager Repository to WBEM client applications.

A WBEM client application contacts the CIM Object Manager to establish a connection when it needs to perform WBEM operations, such as creating a CIM class or updating a CIM instance. When a WBEM client application connects to the CIM Object Manager, it gets a reference to the CIM Object Manager, which it then uses to request services and operations.