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

Introduction to WBEM, CIM, CIM Server, and Providers
Providers
Chapter 120
Figure 1-1 Figure: HP WBEM Services for HP-UX System Architecture
Two types of providers are currently supported by HP WBEM Services
for HP-UX: Instance and Method. The instance provider allows
manipulation of instances of classes, and of properties of those instances.
The method provider allows clients to invoke extrinsic methods on
instances. A single provider can be both a method and a instance
provider, and can serve more than one class of object.
Instance providers must contain code for the following six functions
(although a minimum implementation for a function can simply throw a
NotSupported exception):
• createInstance: creates a new instance of a class of object
• getInstance: returns a single instance of a class