The Common Information Model (CIM) is an information technology (IT) environment model that defines how managed elements are represented as a set of objects and the relationships between them. The CIM allows consistent management of these managed elements. More specifically, every object in the CIM has its structural behavior specified through its attributes (e.g., types), operations on the attributes, and relationships with other objects. For example, an object can include a type attribute of an address, a billing address, and/or a service address that is set by a user, and can be linked to another object including a similar type attribute.
However, the CIM imposes a constraint that every object is static. In other words, every object and its attributes and relationships are unchanged until updated by a user. Accordingly, in a system or service using the CIM, a manifestation of one object (e.g., service address) may require a manifestation of its attributes and relationships to another object (e.g., address), even though some of the attributes and relationships should not be exposed for security reasons. To prevent this unnecessary exposure, a system may require additional security layers that may filter the secure attributes and relationships and/or may restrict access of a particular user to the secure attributes and relationships. In addition, the static nature of objects in the CIM imposes the need to manifest more objects and relationships than necessary, from also a system efficiency and resources standpoint. For example, when a system needs to retrieve an object that is four nodes apart from a billing address object and/or three nodes apart from a service address object, all of the nodes between the needed object and the billing address object and/or the service address object may need to be manifested, which degrades system efficiency and takes up system resources. This excessive manifestation may occur even though only the relevant object needs to be manifested.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds