etermine how to extend the common schema. It covers all areas of management with emphasis on elements and associations of the managed environment. The class hierarchy begins with the abstract-managed element class. It includes subclasses like managed system element classes, product related classes, configuration classes, collection classes, and the statistical data classes. From the classes, the model expands to address problem domains and rela- tionships between managed entities. 2. Common models: Information models that capture notions that are com- mon to a particular management area, but not dependent of any particular technology or implementation are called the common models. This offers a broad range of information including concrete classes and implementa- tions of the classes in the common model. The classes, properties, associa- tions, and methods in the common models are used for program design and implementation. 3. Application model: This model is intended to manage the life cycle and execution of an application. Information in application model deal with managing and deployment of software products and applications. It details models for applications intended for stand-alone and distributed environment. It supports modeling of a single software product as well as a group of interdependent software products. The three main areas in application model are the structure of the application, life cycle of the application, and transi- tion between states in the life cycle of an application. The structure of an application can be defined using the following components: Software element: It is a collection of one or more files and associated details that are individually deployed and managed on a particular platform. Software feature: It is a collection of software elements performing a par- ticular function. Software product: It is a collection of software features that is acquired as a single unit. An agreement that involves licensing, support, and war- rantee is required between the consumer and supplier f