Introduction to Object Orientation and CMIP services

VTAM® Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) services provides an open, standards-based access for network and systems management. Application programmers can use CMIP services to code manager and agent application programs to aid in systems management.

In pre-V4R3 releases of VTAM without CMIP, network application programs, such as the NetView® program, are frequently limited by two restrictions:

They rely on the VTAMLST data set for information about the location of resources within the network.
The VTAMLST data set gives an incomplete picture of the network because VTAMLST includes only resources that are pre-defined. It does not include APPN or subarea resources that are dynamically defined.
They must reside with VTAM on the host.
Because topology information cannot be gathered and sent to the NetView program at a remote location, the NetView program must reside with VTAM on the host.

With CMIP these two restrictions no longer apply for topology management. The VTAM topology agent is a part of VTAM that functions as a CMIP application program. Together with a manager application program, such as the NetView program, the topology agent provides data for the management of APPN and subarea topology. For a description of the VTAM topology agent, see Introduction to VTAM topology agent. A manager application program is any CMIP application program that sends requests to other objects. An agent application program is any CMIP application program that processes requests from other objects.

You can write your own manager or agent application program by using the CMIP services application program interface (API). These application programs are not restricted to system management, VTAM, or SNA resources. For example, you can write an agent application program for the MVS™ system.