 to the namespace to which it belongs. 7. Reference: This is a special property data type declared with REF key word. Use of REF indicates that the data type is a pointer to another instance. Thus defining the role each object plays in an association is done using a reference. The role name of a class in the context of an association can be represented by the reference. 8. Association: Associations are classes having the association qualifier. A type of class or separate object that contains two or more references representing rela- tionships between two or more classes is called an association. Associations are used to establish relationship between classes without affecting any of the related classes. 9. Indication: Indications are types of classes having the indication qualifier. The active representation of the occurrence of an event that can be received by subscribing to them is called an indication. CIM indications can have properties and methods and can be arranged in a hierarchy. There are two types of indications; namely, life cycle indications and pro- cess indications. Life cycle indications deals with CIM class and instance life cycle events. Class events can be class creation, edit, or destroy and instance events can be instance creation, edit, destroy, and method invocation. Process indications deals with alert notifications associated with objects. 10. Managed object format (MOF): This is a language based on the IDL through which CIM management information could be represented to exchange infor- mation. Textual descriptions of classes, associations, properties, references, methods, and instance declarations, their associated qualifiers, and comments are the components of a MOF specification. A set of class and instance decla- rations make up the MOF file. Information Models CIM is a collection of models. Some of the models in CIM are: 1. Core model: The core model is a set of classes, associations, properties for describing managed systems. The core model can be represented as a starting point to d