HP WBEM Services Software Developer's Kit for HP-UX Provider and Client Developer's Guide A.01

Client Implementation
Client Development Use Cases
Chapter 5 105
Client Development Use Cases
By way of example, several use cases are described below. These use
cases illustrate issues that WBEM client developers may encounter in
designing and implementing their applications. A general description
and recommended best practices are included with each use case.
General System Information
Description
Some clients only need general system information describing the
platform and its running operating system. This general information is
often available in particular subclasses of CIM_System, each of which
probably has just a single instance. Examples include the
CIM_ComputerSystem (or CIM_UnitaryComputerSystem) and
CIM_OperatingSystem classes.
Special Considerations
The classes which represent general system information may have only
single instances. Further, those instances may have many properties
which are relatively static, i.e. there may need to be a significant (and
probably infrequent) event such as a system reboot or the changing a
host name before certain properties on the instance will change. These
classes may contain key properties that are propagated to other classes.
In addition, some providers may implement special subclasses with
additional properties or methods. It may be helpful to the user of the
client application to have a mechanism to access these platform or
provider specific properties and methods.
Best Practices
Consider obtaining the system information upon first client contact with
a target platform. If the information is relatively static, it is more
efficient to avoid repeatedly obtaining the same information.
If the client application displays properties of CIM objects to the user,
consider supporting a mechanism whereby users can view additional
properties supplied in the subclasses. It may be helpful to enumerate the
subclasses of the class of interest using the enumerateClasses operation