Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is an initiative undertaken by the Desktop Management Task Force to provide enterprise system managers with a standard low-cost solution for their management needs. The WBEM initiative encompasses a multitude of tasks, ranging from simple workstation configuration to full-scale enterprise management across multiple platforms. Central to the initiative is the Common Information Model (CIM), an extensible data model for representing objects that exist in typical management environments, and the Managed Object Format (MOF) language for defining and storing modelled data.
The WBEM technology is an implementation of the WBEM initiative for Microsoft® Windows® platforms. By extending the CIM to represent objects that exist in Windows management environments and implementing a management infrastructure to support both the MOF language and a common programming interface, the WBEM technology enables diverse applications to transparently manage a variety of enterprise components.
WBEM's management infrastructure consists the following components: