01-C.htm

Thank you, Rick,  for that complete statement which pretty much  states the basis for the WIMS/CIM activity. I would make a few more observations:

-          Even if/when WS-Man becomes more popularly used, SNMP is not going away for a long time and there will be a prolonged period of supporting both management protocols. By basing the  CIM Print management elements on well established and implemented MIB objects, the CIM Printer effort :

o   Allows early support of printer management via WS-Man by using software or network appliance SNMP to WS-Man converters, so that printers that just support SNMP can still be monitored via WS-Man.

o   Allows use of a common management information base in the printer that the two management protocols can both draw upon.

-          Although this approach allows monitoring via WS-Man pretty much to the same degree as with the standard Printer MIB sets, at this point it does not address the additional features of modern printers that are not covered in the traditional MIBs.

o   This deficiency will be alleviated somewhat by the current activity to render the Imaging System Counter MIB objects in CIM format

o   Hopefully, there will be additional PWG work to recast service and job elements in  IPP  and in other MIBs into CIM format

o   We envision an effort to eventually enrich the CIM imaging libraries with additional MFD oriented elements

Of course, this all takes work in selecting and defining management elements, in formatting the information appropriately, and in going through the standardization steps. Rick and Ira have beaten something of a path to follow and have offered to provide guidance to those who would continue this effort. The objective would be to provide adequate standard management capability for imaging devices via WS-Man, avoiding the Balkanizing that has occurred with the plethora of private MIBs.  In the last analysis, this would save significant effort both for manufacturers and management providers, and ultimately would benefit the customers as well (perhaps encouraging more use of imaging systems).

Bill Wagner

Nancy, I'm sorry that I wasn't clearer about the structure and future of web service management in the printer space.  Thank you for the question.  Clarification follows, I hope.  I think this deserves a real answer, not just yes-no.  And I think a lot of people need to hear the answer.  I hope you don't mind my sending this reply to a broader audience. 

- WS-Management is not restricted to transferring CIM-based objects.  The WS-Man protocol can be used with any sort of objects.  In this sense, it is like SNMP without MIBs.  WS-Man includes Get, Put, Enumerate (and so forth) just as SNMP includes Get, Set, GetNext (and so forth). 

- A protocol is not sufficient to manage a device.  You still have to define the management data objects that are to be manipulated by the protocol operations.  For SNMP, one defines MIBs, lots of them, to specify the syntax and semantics of the data to be manipulated.  For WS-Man, the only public, standard definitions so far are CIM objects. 

- DMTF (dmtf.org) publishes the WS-Man protocol standard as its document DSP0226.  It also publishes the WS-Man CIM Binding spec, which describes how CIM objects are to be named and manipulated using WS-Man, as DSP0227.  And the XML representation of CIM objects for use by web services is described in DSP0230.  The entire CIM schema is also published by DMTF and updated three times per year. 

- PWG has just invested considerable effort in defining the CIM classes for a Printer device to match the model of the Printer MIB and the Semantic Model.  The CIM schema v2.19 now contains about fifteen classes and a hundred properties that very closely parallel the Printer MIB.  So, theoretically, it would now be possible to manage a printer using a modern web service, WS-Management. 

- As a proof of the mapping from SNMP to CIM schema, I am building a prototype of a proxy provider for a CIM server.  This will take SNMP data from a network printer and re-publish it in a CIM Object Manager ("CIMOM," such as WMI on Windows) using these new printer-related classes. 

- If someone wants to invent another mapping of the industry-standard printer management data to some other data model, he/she is free to do that.  However, the result won't be any smaller or simpler than the one that was in the Printer MIB -- and is now in the CIM schema.  Sure, it's possible, but why bother?  We already invested the man-year or two necessary to define that data in a published standard.  Any sensible implementer will simply use what is available. 

- Many of us are convinced that web services will become popular management protocols, and over time will become the dominant protocols.  If something is not manageable by a web service protocol, at some point in the future, on some set of corporate networks, it simply won't be manageable at all. 

- Overhead?  Sure, everything has overhead.  The SNMP agent in a printer has overhead, and manufacturers complained about that expense when it was first implemented.  The HTTP web service in a printer has overhead, and manufacturers complained when it was first implemented.  So, too, the WS-Man service management agent in a future printer will have overhead, and we will complain about that.  But if we want a device to be manageable in corporate and educational networks, we have no choice.  Customers insist on out-of-band management as a feature of all network devices. 

- I will point out that, as of late this year, every new business desktop and laptop computer system will have a complete, WS-Man-based, out-of-band, management agent, using (dozens of) CIM classes to transfer data.  Look for "DASH" in the feature list.  The major vendors will be using chips developed by a number of companies, including all the major NIC and management controller companies, in any new system that requires remote management.  The overhead for this agent is small, and largely in silicon. 

So, to answer your question, No, WS-Management is not *required* to use CIM objects, but it *can* use CIM objects.  And CIM objects represent a very rich and growing set of management objects for computer systems and peripherals.   If one wants to include web service management in a device, the WS-Management and CIM schema standards are already available.  

From: nchen@okidata.com [mailto:nchen@okidata.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 09:49
To: Landau, Richard
Subject: CIM object requirement for WS-Management

Hi Rick,

I remember at the beginning of WIMS-CIM alignment project, you mentioned that in the future WS-Managet will only accept CIM objects.

Is this still true? I don't see this compliance statement in WS-Management spec, neither the claim at DMTF CIM web site. Would you please verify this remains true? If so, do a device wishing to be managed by WS-Management need to embedded their management data in CIM objects within the device? I see a lot of overhead in this.

-Nancy
------------------------------------------------
Nancy Chen
Principal Engineer
Solutions and Technology
Oki Data
2000 Biships Gate Blvd.
Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054
Phone: (856) 222-7006
Emal: nchen@okidata.com