ISO CMIP: Common Management Information Protocol &

ISO CMIS: Common Management Information Service

Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP), an OSI protocol used with the Common Management Information Services (CMIS), supports information exchange between network management applications and management agents. CMIS defines a system of network management information services. CMIP supplies an interface that provides functions which maybe used to support both ISO and user-defined management protocols. The CMIP specification for TCP/IP networks is called CMOT (CMIP Over TCP) and the version for IEEE 802 LAN's is called CMOL (CMIP Over LLC). CMIP/CMIS are proposed as competing protocols to the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP ) in the TCP/IP suite .

CMIP uses an ISO reliable connection-oriented transport mechanism and has built in security that supports access control, authorization and security logs. The management information is exchanged between the network management application and management agents thru managed objects. Managed objects are a characteristic of a managed device that can be monitored, modified or controlled and can be used to perform tasks.

CMIP does not specify the functionality of the network management application, it only defines the information exchange mechanism of the managed objects and not how the information is to be used or interpreted. The following picture provides a high level picture of the network management system based on the CMIP/CMIS:

The major advantages of CMIP over SNMP are:

• CMIP variables not only relay information, but also can be used to perform tasks. This is impossible under SNMP.
• CMIP is a safer system as it has built in security that supports authorization, access control, and security logs.

• CMIP provides powerful capabilities that allow management applications to accomplish more with a single request.
• CMIP provides better reporting of unusual network conditions 

Access to managed information in the managed objects is provided by the Common Management Information Service Element (CMISE) that uses CMIP (Common Management Information Protocol) to issue requests for management services. The management services provided by CMIP/CMISE can be organized into two distinct groups, management operation services initiated by a manager to request that an agent provide certain services or information, and notification services, used by the management agents to inform the managers that some event or set of events have occurred.

Protocol Structure - ISO CMIP: Common Management Information Protocol

CMIP is an ASN.1 based protocol, whose PDUs (Protocol Data Units) are based on ROSE. Each service element has its PDUs which are part of the ROSE user data. The CMISE primitives and CMIP operation are listed as follows:

Correspondence between CMISE primitives and CMIP operations

CMIP/CMIS are defined in ISO (www.iso.org ) documents 9595, 9596 and ITU (www.itu.org ) X.700, X.711.

http://www.doc.ua.pt/arch/itu/rec/product/X.htm
X.711: Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Common management information protocol: Specification
X.700: Management framework for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) for CCITT applications
X.701: Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Systems management overview
X.702: Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Application context for systems management with transaction processing
X.703: Information technology - Open Distributed Management Architecture