Support for WBEM Process Indication (Extrinsic) Events Added

Currently, WBEM event services enable client applications to asynchronously receive indications when conditions of interest are met. However, the only supported indications belong to the class life cycle indications. Life cycle indications denote the modification, the creation, and the deletion of an instance.

While this class of indications is very flexible and wide ranging, instrumentation might need to publish indications that do not fall into this category. Given this requirement, the DMTF introduced the process indication hierarchy as an extension to the current indication hierarchy. The process indications for WBEM services now handle this extended hierarchy.

Process indications for WBEM services is Sun Microsystems' implementation of the process indication portion of the event model. The process indication class is the superclass of all indications that are published by instrumentation. This superclass also includes the life cycle indications.

The process of subscribing to process indications is the same as the process of subscribing to life cycle indications.

For further information about WBEM, see the new Solaris WBEM Developer's Guide, which has replaced the Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide and the Solaris WBEM SDK Developer's Guide.

WBEM mofcomp Command Enhanced

The Managed Object Format (MOF) compiler (mofcomp) now allows you to specify a namespace on the command line. If the namespace does not exist, it is created.

In addition, the MOF Compiler now generates Java interface and class source files. This feature enables you to use standard Java interfaces rather than CIM constructs and CIM object model application programming interfaces (APIs).

For each CIMClass, an interface and a class file are generated. The interface is generated to enable you to create different implementations while maintaining interoperability.

For further information about WBEM, see the new Solaris WBEM Developer's Guide, which has replaced the Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide and the Solaris WBEM SDK Developer's Guide.

Sample Programs Are Added for New Java WBEM SDK

The Java WBEM Software Developer's Kit (SDK) now includes a new sample Java applet and sample programs. The Java applet and sample programs are installed in /usr/demo/wbem.

The Java WBEM SDK sample programs show you how to use events, queries, and batching. You can use these samples as a basis for developing your own programs.

For further information about WBEM, see the new Solaris WBEM Developer's Guide, which has replaced the Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide and the Solaris WBEM SDK Developer's Guide.

Solaris WBEM Software Developer's Kit

The Solaris Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) Software Developer's Kit (SDK) includes APIs that developers use to create applications. Based on WBEM, these applications can access data and manage resources in the Solaris operating environment. The Solaris WBEM SDK also includes CIM WorkShop. The CIM WorkShop is a Java application that developers can use to create WBEM applications. With the CIM WorkShop, developers can view the sample WBEM client and provider programs that are included with the software.

For further information about WBEM, see the new Solaris WBEM Developer's Guide, which has replaced the Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide and the Solaris WBEM SDK Developer's Guide.

New Solaris Providers

The new Solaris Providers enable developers to create software that gets and sets information about managed devices in a Common Information Model (CIM) environment. A Solaris Provider provides the CIM Object Manager with instances of managed resources in the Solaris operating environment.

Five new Solaris Providers are available in the Solaris 9 software:

• WBEM Performance Monitor for Solaris devices and systems - Provides a variety of statistical information about a system on which the Solaris operating environment is running.

• WBEM Product Registry - Provides the ability to add, delete, or modify new or existing products that are installed on a system.

• WBEM SNMP Provider - Enables WBEM services to deliver information by means of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), a protocol of the Internet reference model that is used for network management.

• WBEM EEPROM Provider - Enables the display and modification of configuration information in the EEPROM.

• Provider for WBEM System Availability - Provides reboot information about a system. This information enables applications to compute the percentage of time that a system has been up and running. This provider also supplies reasons why a system failed:

  • System panic occurred

  • System halted by a user

  • System shut down by a user

For further information about WBEM, see the new Solaris WBEM Developer's Guide, which has replaced the Solaris WBEM Services Administration Guide and the Solaris WBEM SDK Developer's Guide.

Writing Device Drivers

The Solaris 9 release includes the following enhancements for writing device drivers.

Frame Buffer Power Management

Some devices, such as certain tape drives and frame buffers, should not lose power, even in a power cycle, when their drivers are detached. A new interface, ddi_removing_power, checks whether a device loses power as a result of a suspend operation. A new property, no-involuntary-power-cycles, can be specified to ensure that the device is not powered down unintentionally.

For more information, see the ddi_removing_power(9F) and no-involuntary-power-cycles(9P) man pages.

SPARC: Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager

The Sun StorEdge™ Traffic Manager supports multiple paths for I/O devices such as Fibre Channel-accessible storage. This feature balances the workload across multiple devices. The Traffic Manager increases reliability by redirecting requests from a failed interface card or storage device to a card or device that is operational.

SPARC: Driver Fault Injector Harness

The driver fault injector harness is a Solaris device driver development tool. The harness injects a wide range of simulated hardware faults when the driver under development accesses its hardware. The harness tests the impact of the test fault conditions on a SPARC based device driver.

For more information, see the man pages th_define(1M) and th_manage(1M).

Generic LAN Driver

Driver developers can use the Generic LAN Driver (GLD). The GLD implements much of the STREAMS and Data Link Provider Interface (DLPI) functionality for a Solaris network driver. Until the Solaris 8 10/00 release, the GLD module was available only for Solaris x86 Platform Edition network drivers. Now, GLD is available for Solaris SPARC Platform Edition network drivers.

For more information, see "Drivers for Network Devices" in Writing Device Drivers.

Java Releases

The Solaris 9 release includes the following Java enhancements.

JavaHelp v. 1.1.2

JavaHelp™ v. 1.1.2 is a full-featured, platform-independent, extensible help system. This system enables developers and authors to incorporate online help in applets, components, applications, operating systems, and devices. For more information, refer to the following Web site:

http://java.sun.com/products

Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition v. 1.4.0

The Java 2 SDK Standard Edition v. 1.4.0, J2SE™ 1.4.0, is an upgrade release for Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition. The upgrade release includes new platform features, new tools, and utilities.

For full details on these enhancements, see the J2SE 1.4.0 platform documentation at the following Web site:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/relnotes/features.html