The Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) is the OSI specified

network management Network management is the process of administering and managing computer networks. Services provided by this discipline include fault analysis, performance management, provisioning of networks and maintaining quality of service. Network managem ...

protocol. Defined i
ITU-T Recommendation X.711, ISO/IEC International Standard 9596-1
It provides an implementation for the services defined by the Common Management Information Service (CMIS) specified i
ITU-T Recommendation X.710, ISO/IEC International Standard 9595
allowing communication between network management applications and management agents. CMIS/CMIP is the

protocol specified by the

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

/ OSI Network management model and is further defined by the

ITU-T The International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three Sectors (branches) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating Standardization, standards fo ...

in the X.700 series of recommendations. CMIP models management information in terms of

managed object In network, a managed object is an abstract representation of network resources that are managed. With ''representation'', we mean not only the actual device that is managed but also the device driver, that communicates with the device. An examp ...

s and allows both modification and performing actions on managed objects. Managed objects are described using GDMO (Guidelines for the Definition of Managed Objects), and can be identified by a distinguished name (DN), from the X.500 directory. CMIP also provides good security (support authorization, access control, and security logs) and flexible reporting of unusual network conditions.

Services implemented

The management functionality implemented by CMIP is described under CMIS services. In a typical Telecommunications Management Network, a

management system A management system is a set of policy, policies, business process, processes and procedures used by an organization to ensure that it can fulfill the tasks required to achieve its objectives. These objectives cover many aspects of the organizati ...

will make use of the management operation services to monitor

network element In computer networks, a network element is a manageable logical entity uniting one or more physical devices. This allows distributed devices to be managed in a unified way using one management system. According to the Telecommunications Act of 1 ...

Management agent A Management agent is a software agent that runs on a managed node (example: a router) and provides an interface to manage it. It can perform operations on managed objects in the node and can also forward notifications to the manager ( EMS). T ...

s found on network elements will make use of the management notification services to send notifications or alarms to the network management system.

Deployment

CMIP is implemented in association with the ACSE and

ROSE A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

protocols. Both are Layer 7

OSI protocols The Open Systems Interconnection protocols are a family of information exchange standards developed jointly by the International Organization for Standardization, ISO and the ITU-T. The standardization process began in 1977. While the seven-la ...

(Application Layer). ACSE is used to manage associations between management applications (i.e. manage connections between CMIP agents).

is employed for all data exchange interactions. Besides the presence of these Layer 7 protocols, CMIP assumes the presence of all OSI layers at lower levels but does not explicitly specify what these should be. There have been some attempts to adapt CMIP to the

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

protocol stack. Most notable is CMOT contained in RFC 1189 (detailing CMIP over TCP). Other possibilities include RFC 1006 (which provides an ISO transport service on top of TCP), and CMIP over LPP (a presentation layer protocol that can run on top of TCP or UDP). There is also a form of CMIS that is developed to operate directly on top of the

LLC A limited liability company (LLC) is the United States-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...

sublayer. It is called the LAN/MAN Management Protocol (LMMP), formerly it was the ''Common Management Information Services and Protocol over IEEE 802 Logical Link Control (CMOL)''. This protocol does away with the need for the OSI stack as is the case with CMIP.

History

CMIP was designed in competition with

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behavior. Devices that typically su ...

, and has far more features than SNMP. For example, SNMP defines only "set" actions to alter the state of the managed device, while CMIP allows the definition of any type of action. CMIP was a key part of the Telecommunications Management Network, and enabled cross-organizational as well as cross-vendor network management. On the Internet, however, most

devices support SNMP and not CMIP. This is because of the complexity and resource requirements of CMIP agents and management systems. CMIP is supported mainly by telecommunication devices.

References

*CMIP is formally defined by the X.700 series of recommendations from the

(in particular X.711), and ISO 9596. Some description is also provided in RFC 1095 and RFC 1189 (The Common Management Information Services and Protocols for the Internet).
List of ITU X-series recommendations
* * {{cite book , first=Allan , last=Leinwand , author2=Conroy, Karen Fang , editor=Thomas Stone , year=1996 , title=Network Management: A Practical Perspective , publisher=Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. , location=Massachusetts , isbn=978-0-201-60999-8 ITU-T recommendations Network management OSI protocols

Services implemented

Deployment

History

See also

References