Specifications

The simplest MIF file contains only the component ID group, but MIFs can
become as complex as needed for any given product.
1.9.1.3 Management Interface (MI)
The management interface (MI) shields managements applications from the
different mechanism used to obtain management information for products within
a desktop system.
The MI allows a management application to query for a list of manageable
products, access specific components and get and set individual attributes.
Additionally, the MI allows a management application to tell the service layer to
send back information about indications from manageable products.
The MI commands provide three types of operations to control manageable
products:
•
Get
•
Set
•
List
Get allows a management application to get the current value of individual
attributes or group of attributes.
Set allows writeable attributes to be changed.
List allows management applications to read the MIF descriptions of manageable
products, without having to retrieve the attribute values for that product. Thus, a
management application can query a system and retrieve useful information
about the contents of the system, with no previous knowledge of that system.
1.9.1.4 Component Interface (CI)
The component interface (CI) handles communication between manageable
products and the service layer. The CI communicates with manageable products
for get and set operations. It also receives indications from manageable
products and passes those to the MI. Active instrumentation allows components
to provide accurate, real-time information whenever the value is requested. A
single component attribute can have a single value, or it can be obtained from a
table using index keys.
1.9.2 SNMP
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a network management
protocol defined within the TCP/IP transport protocol standard. It is a rather
generic protocol by which management information for a wide variety of network
elements may be inspected or altered by logically remote users. It is a
transaction-oriented protocol based on an interaction between managers and
agents. The SNMP manager communicates with its agents. Agents gather
management data and store it, while managers solicit this data and process it.
The SNMP architectural model has been a collection of network management
stations and network elements such as gateways, routers and hosts. These
elements act as servers and contain management agents which perform The
network management functions requested by the network elements. The
network management stations act as clients; they run the management
applications which monitor and control network elements.
Chapter 1. IBM PC Server Technologies 39