Chapter 5 Client Implementation

A WBEM client application is any software application that makes manageability requests (CIM operations) of a CIM server using the CIM-XML protocol over HTTP. Clients can range from general purpose to extremely specific. Clients may be designed to interoperate in heterogeneous platform environments or to operate on a particular platform, manage only the local system on which they are running, or manage one or more remote systems or entities. Platforms may be general-purpose servers or specific-purpose devices such as printers or storage arrays.

While there are many factors in designing a client application (graphical user interface design, human factors evaluations, plug-in and infrastructure architecture and others), this section focuses only on the aspects of interacting with the WBEM CIM Server (discovery, CIM operations, interpreting results, and other topics). Clients may also want to make use of their own CIM classes and thus may also be CIM providers.

To write a client application, you need to:

Define the management operations you need to perform. This could include simply monitoring information on a single system or actively managing several managed entities.
Identify the schema and applicable providers on the managed platforms which support those requirements.
Implement the Client application, including:
- Discovery on platforms of interest, namespaces, classes, and instrumented elements;
- Client navigation of the schema;
- Security;
- Compiling and linking;
- Test strategy and documentation; and
- Release (including distribution, installation, and upgrade).

Documentation for the C++ Client API may be found in the HP WBEM Services SDK in the /opt/wbem/html directory.

Chapter 5 Client Implementation

Technical documentation

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