Common Information Model

Abstract

A common information model (CIM) defines information that is available for sharing among multiple business processes and the applications that support them. These common definitions are neutral with respect to the processes that produce and use that information, the applications that access the data that express that information, and the technologies in which those applications are implemented. In an architecture based on the CIM, applications map their data only to the CIM and not to other applications, and they interface only to the middleware that implements the CIM (the integration broker or IB), not to other applications. This not only reduces the number of interfaces to be built and maintained, it provides a basis for integrating applications in a way that reduces the coupling among them, thereby allowing them to be upgraded or replaced with minimal functional impact on other applications.