The hierarchical, inheritance-based nature of CIM allows it
to be easily extended to account for differences on different operating
systems. For example, there is no exact equivalent in Windows of
the "mount point" concept of UNIX platforms. Conversely, there is
no consistent notion in UNIX of the "registered user" (owner) of
the operating system or other software components. Extensions to
accommodate platform-specific differences are encouraged and must
follow well-defined rules. New classes of objects are created by
defining subclasses of existing classes in order to add new properties
or to represent concepts that are unique to the platform. The task
of implementing a provider often involves extending the CIM model
by defining new classes of objects. Guidelines for extending the
model are discussed in Chapter 3, Chapter 3 “Schema Design and Implementation”.
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