About the CIM Object Manager

The CIM Object Manager (CIMOM) 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 programming language classes.

When a WBEM client application accesses information about an object, the CIMOM contacts either the provider for that object or the CIM Object Manager Repository. Providers are classes that communicate with managed objects to access data. A WBEM client application might request data from a managed resource that is not available from the CIM Object Manager Repository. In this case, 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 port 5987 and for XML over HTTP connections on port 5988

• Sets up a connection to the CIM Object Manager Repository

• Waits for incoming requests

The CIM Object Manager:

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

• Performs syntactical and semantic checking of CIM data operations to ensure that the operations 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 CIMOM to establish a connection when the client needs to perform WBEM operations. Examples of such operations include creating a CIM class or updating a CIM instance. When a WBEM client application connects to the CIMOM, the client application gets a reference to the CIMOM. The client application uses that reference to request services and operations.