Server AdministratorDell OpenManage™ Server Administrator CIM Reference Guide
Documenting CIM Classes and Their Properties
This reference guide documents the Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Common Information Model (CIM) provider contained in the Management Object File (MOF) dccim32.mof.
CIM provides a conceptual model for describing manageable objects in a systems management environment. CIM is a modeling tool rather than a programming language. CIM provides the structure for organizing objects into a model of a managed environment. For modeling a managed environment, CIM makes available a set of abstract and concrete classes of objects. These classes model the basic characteristics of systems, networks, and applications, as well as groupings of management-related data.
For more information about CIM, see the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) website at www.dmtf.org and the Microsoft® website at www.microsoft.com.
Server Administrator 1.0 or later provides a suite of systems management information for keeping track of your networked systems. In addition to providing systems management agents that are independent of the management console, Server Administrator supports these systems management standards: CIM and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
In addition to supporting systems management industry standards, Server Administrator provides additional systems management information about the specific components of your Dell™ system.
The Dell CIM provider extends support to Dell-specific software and hardware components. The Dell MOF defines the classes for the Dell CIM provider. All of the supported classes and properties in the MOF are documented in this guide.
The following subsections define some of the basic building blocks of CIM classes that are used in describing the dccim32 provider name. These subsections also explain how the elements used in describing these classes are organized. This section does not document the entire CIM schema, but only those classes and properties supported by the dccim32 provider. The list of properties for each supported class varies greatly.
Four classes in the Server Administrator CIM provider class hierarchy do not have a parent property. These base classes do not derive from another class. The four base classes are:
The CIM_ManagedSystemElement class is the base class for the system element hierarchy from which all other CIM classes are derived. As a result, CIM_ManagedSystemElement has no parent. Examples of managed system elements include software components such as files, devices such as hard drives and controllers, and physical subcomponents of devices such as chip sets and cards. For the CIM_ManagedSystemElement properties, see Caption, CreationClassName, Description, Name, and Status in Table 1-2, "Common Properties of Classes."
DELL_EsmLog and DELL_PostLog do not have parent classes because they are Dell-defined classes that are not defined in the official schema by the DMTF, the industry group that defines the standards for CIM. CIM_Dependency does not have a parent class because it is a relationship or association between two managed system elements.
Most classes in the dccim32 provider document both a Class Name and a Parent Class property. The parent class is the class from which any given class inherits its core properties. For example, the CIM_Controller class has the CIM_LogicalDevice class as its parent, and has various types of controllers (CIM_ParallelController, CIM_SerialController) as its children.
Classes that derive from CIM_Dependency have CIM_Dependency as their parent class, but they are documented in terms of antecedent and dependent elements in a relationship rather than in terms of common properties. Consider the following relationship between two CIM_ManagedSystemElements:
The CIM_PackageCurrentSensor monitors an entire physical package, such as all the components contained in a given system chassis. The CIM_PhysicalPackage is dependent on the CIM_PackageCurrentSensor for this monitoring function.
Server Administrator has extended some CIM classes and has created new classes to assist in managing systems and their components. In the diagrams that appear in the documentation for each class, those classes created and populated by Dell are designated by the gold (lighter gray) triangle 
icon.
The following example shows how most of the classes in the Dell CIM provider are documented. Table 1-1 shows a partial class description for the DELL_DMA class. (For a full class description, see Table 3-36, "CIM_DMA Properties.")
Class Name appears in Courier typeface and provides the string that names the class in the MOF.
Parent Class appears in Courier typeface and provides the name of the class from which the present class is derived.
Property denotes the name of the attribute that is being defined for this class.
Description includes text that defines the property.
Data Type stipulates the format that the values of this property must take. Common data types include Boolean, string, and various types of integer. Boolean indicates that the property must be expressed as one of two alternatives.
|
Class Name: | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Parent Class: | ||
|
Property |
Description |
Data Type |
Availability of the DMA. Availability values are defined as follows: | ||
Many classes have properties such as Caption, Description, and CreationClassName. Table 1-2 defines properties that have the same meaning in every class that has this property and are defined more than once in this guide.
Table 1-2. Common Properties of Classes
Besides this Dell OpenManage Server Administrator CIM Reference Guide, you can find the following guides on your online documentation CD, or at support.dell.com: