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1.3 Overview

  • Article

The Web Services Management Protocol Extensions for Windows Server 2003 are a set of modifications to the WS-Management Protocol as specified in [DMTF-DSP0226], the WS-Management CIM Binding Specification as specified in [DMTF-DSP0227], and the WS-CIM Mapping Specification as specified in [DMTF-DSP0230] for compatibility with Windows Server 2003 R2 operating system. Note that conformance to these extensions does not make an implementation compatible with the WS-Management Protocol specifications as currently published by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). Instead, conformance makes an implementation compatible with Microsoft's implementation of WS-Management in Windows Server 2003 R2, which was based on the prerelease drafts of the WS-Management Protocol specifications available at the time Windows Server 2003 R2 was implemented and released.<1>

WS-Management is a remote management protocol that can be used for managing software and hardware components.

The WS-Management Protocol can provide remote access to CIM objects as specified by [DMTF-DSP0004]. WS-Management servers expose a set of entities that can be managed as objects with attributes and methods. WS-Management clients perform management tasks by issuing object operations against objects exposed by WS-Management servers.

The CIM management schema provides a standard framework and set of base classes that describe a managed environment. Each type of managed entity is described by a CIM class and individual entities are managed through instances of the appropriate CIM class. For example, a logical disk drive can be managed through an instance of the CIM_DiskDrive class. This class contains various member properties such as Name, DeviceID, and Status. On a machine with multiple storage devices, the CIM_DiskDrive class will contain one instance for each storage device. The CIM_DiskDrive class can also be subclassified to add platform-specific properties such as the drive letter used on the Windows platform. CIM class definitions are similar to class definitions in other object-oriented database systems and object-oriented programming languages.

CIM-based management in a Web services environment requires that the CIM schema (classes, properties, and methods) be rendered in both XML Schema and Web Services Description Language (WSDL). To achieve this, the CIM is required to be mapped to WSDL and XML Schema using a translation or mapping algorithm. The WS-CIM Mapping Specification, as specified in [DMTF-DSP0230], specifies the normative rules and recommendations that describe the structure of the XML Schema, WSDL fragments, and metadata fragments corresponding to the elements of CIM models. The WS-CIM Mapping Specification also specifies the representation of CIM instances as XML instance documents.

The WS-Management CIM Binding specification, as specified in [DMTF-DSP0227], describes how to name and access CIM entities using the WS-Management Protocol. To query the status of managed entities, the WS-Management Protocol is used to retrieve their CIM instances using operations such as Get and Enumerate. Updates to managed entities are sent using the WS-Management Put operation. To invoke a CIM method, a WS-Management Protocol custom method is used.<2>

The Web Services Management Protocol Extensions for Windows Server 2003 include six sets of changes to the WS-Management Protocol, the WS-Management CIM Binding Specification, and the WS-CIM Mapping Specification:

  • Differences in the resource Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) prefix used to identify managed entities in the WS-Management Protocol.<3>

  • Differences in the XML namespaces for WS-Management and CIM mapping namespaces.

  • Differences in element tags.

  • New element tags for vendor-extensible tags.

  • Unsupported actions and actions with only limited support.

  • New data types for configuration of Web Services Management Protocol Extensions for Windows Server 2003 clients and servers.