Hardware Sensor Information - HP xw4300 Technical White Paper

HP CMI exposes three classifications of management information about the underlying hardware
platform:

• Hardware sensor information

This includes information about physical sensors within the client computer. The interface supports a
wide variety of sensor types, including both numerical sensors such as fan speed (rpm) and sensors
based on a physical state, such as the state of a case lock (open, closed). Sensor data is surfaced
as an enumeration in WMI, which provides flexibility in the number and types of sensors reported
from platform to platform.
• Hardware configuration options
Instrumentation information related to configuring hardware options includes a multitude of features.
These features are exposed in both a general and specialized manner to systems management
applications. As with sensor data, hardware configuration options are surfaced as an enumeration
in WMI, which provides flexibility in the number and types of sensors reported from platform to
platform.
• System health events
System health events are dynamically surfaced based on triggered hardware events. WMI provides
a convenient, low-bandwidth mechanism for management information consumers to subscribe to
these hardware events and be notified in real-time. These events can be monitored at the local client
computer or by a remote console.
Hardware Sensor Information
HP CMI defines a base model for surfacing hardware sensor data to management applications. This
model supports extension in two ways:
Enumeration of sensors physically attached to a given platform can be generalized by querying
1.
against the base class. This allows management tools to automatically detect available sensor
devices without recoding.
Definition of new sensor types will extend the general definitions provided by the interface. This
2.
approach guarantees that properties known and understood today will continue to possess the
same characteristics and behaviors as new features are introduced.
The following table defines the basic set of services provided by HP CMI to support the surfacing of
hardware sensor data to management applications.
Management Class
HP_BIOSSensor
HP_BIOSStateSensor
HP_BIOSNumericSensor
Description
Defines the basic set of properties common to all types of hardware
sensors. All hardware sensors available on a particular platform can be
surfaced by enumerating this class.
This class provides access to a category of sensors that our monitored
by state changes only. State changes are defined by an array of
possible values within each sensor definition. Examples of state-based
sensors would include POST warnings, physical switches, or solenoids.
Defines the category of sensors that return numerical measurements.
5