[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.]
Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) defines two types of providers:
Application-specific providers are developed by third-party vendors to communicate information from objects in their domain to the CIM Object Manager (CIMOM).
Built-in providers are developed by WBEM and are included with the WBEM SDK. These providers supply CIMOM with information from various logical and physical sources such as the system registry, the Microsoft® Win32® subsystem, and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) devices. There are two varieties of built-in providers: those that provide data and those that provide events.
The built-in providers are briefly described in the following table:
| Provider | Description |
|---|---|
| PerfMon Provider | Provides access to data from the Windows NT® PerfMon application. |
| Registry Event Provider | Sends an event whenever a change occurs to a key, a value, or an entire tree in the system registry. |
| Registry Provider | Provides access to data from the system registry. |
| SNMP Provider | Provides access to data and events from SNMP devices. |
| Windows NT Event Log Provider | Provides access to data and notifications of events from the Windows NT Event Log. |
| Win32 Provider | Provides access to data from the Win32 subsystem. |
| WMI Provider | Provides access to data and events from device drivers that conform to the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interface. |
To use one of the built-in WBEM providers, compile the appropriate Managed Object Format (MOF) file that installs the provider.
None of the built-in providers that serve as instance providers perform query processing; they let CIMOM handle it.