Understanding the WMI Model

WMI is sometimes referred to as a hierarchical namespace, in which the layers build on one another like a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory used in Active Directory, or the filesystem structure on your hard disk drive. Although it is true that WMI is a hierarchical namespace, the term doesn’t really convey the richness of WMI. The WMI model has three sections-resources, infrastructure, and consumers-with the following uses:

• WMI resources   Resources include anything that can be accessed by using WMI-the filesystem, networked components, event logs, files, folders, disks, Active Directory, and so on.

• WMI infrastructure   The infrastructure comprises three parts: the WMI service, the WMI repository, and the WMI providers. Of these parts, WMI providers are the most important because they provide the means for WMI to gather needed information.

• WMI consumers   A consumer “consumes” the data from WMI. A consumer can be a PowerShell or VBScript, an enterprise management software package, or some other tool or utility that executes WMI queries.