The Basics of WMI and Why You Need to Monitor It
WMI is short for Windows Management Instrumentation. The technical definition for WMI is the infrastructure for management data and operations on windows-based operating systems. It is based upon the Desktop Management Task Force (DTMF) standard and is a specific set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification....
I know, that seems like a whole bunch of technical jargon that still sort of leaves you wondering, what the heck is WMI and why is it important?
Basically, the purpose of WMI is to define a non-proprietary set of environment-independent specifications which allow management information to be shared between management applications. It prescribes enterprise management standards and related technologies to work with existing management standards such as DMI and SNMP, and compliments them by providing a uniform model. Based on the Common Information Model (CIM), which is an open standard that defines how managed elements of an IT environment are represented, WMI includes most of the Microsoft applications available today such as SQL Server, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and others.
So why is the ability to monitor WMI enabled applications and devices? Well due to a constant increasing exposure of management data through WMI in windows, more and more IT administrators and managers started to develop scripts and automation procedures based on WMI. This has since lead most management software companies in the world to become WMI-enabled and capable of consuming and providing WMI information through various user interfaces.
WhatsUp Gold was one of the first network and application management solutions to fully support WMI and offer complete monitoring capability for WMI enabled desktop and server OSs and applications. Using WhatsUp Gold WMI monitoring capabilities, network managers can immediately understand the health of their servers and applications to pro-actively understand and resolve issues before they become real problems.