By Theo Forbath
Network World, 5/5/97

To understand the Java Management API (JMAPI) and Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM), you first have to understand that WBEM actually has little to do with Web usage or browser management. It focuses on specifying a standard data structure, referred to as a meta-data schema, that will allow management information collected by SNMP, DMI, Common Management Interface Protocol and other management protocols to be stored and accessed from a common repository.

The Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) is finalizing the first major component of WBEM, a Common Information Model (CIM), which is intended to address the need for a common way to describe and share management information across the enterprise. BMC Software, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have already committed to supporting CIM in their management tools by the end of 1997.

The other two components of WBEM include Hyper-Media Object Manager (HMOM), a translation mechanism for converting managed device instrumentation information to CIM formats, and Hyper-Media Management Protocol (HMMP), a proposed transport specification for Web-based management.

JMAPI is a critical component of SunSoft, Inc.'s Java-based Solstice Workshop initiative, a programming environment for building Web-based network and systems management tools. JMAPI is intended to be a standard set of class libraries, Java widgets and user interface specifications that Sun is hoping to promote with its partners' support.

JMAPI potentially could offer vendors and users a standardized look and feel for Web-based management as well as reduce the development effort vendors invest in the basics of displaying information and building management tools.

High-level portions of JMAPI, including a schema definition, overlap with WBEM. Bt none of these portions have yet materialized. Nonetheless, a number of network element providers, including Cisco Systems, Inc. and Bay Networks, Inc., have committed to using JMAPI.

Unfortunately, the IT industry has found it easier to write specifications than to get them widely adopted. There's a good chance JMAPI and WBEM will never fully materialize. However, industry observers note that there have been some gradual shifts in the driving forces behind today's standards bodies.

Years ago, participation in standards bodies was left to academics and technologists. During the past five years, senior engineers from many of the leading vendors became actively involved. And more recently, they have been joined by their product marketing colleagues.

While cynics view this with increasing skepticism, one must keep in mind that rarely does the best technology win in the market - the best marketing does. With the experience of seasoned marketing folks behind the standards efforts, perhaps we'll see stronger messages about the importance and value of implementing these new management standards across the independent software vendor management community.