Any organisation needs to use a large number of software applications and infrastructure products to automate business processes. Each application performs a specific set of functions for the end users. However, managing these applications is also an additional responsibility of the IT team. The user interface and methodology provided by each application for administration may be (and most often will be) different. Due to this diversity, administrators need to learn a different user interface for different applications.

The purpose of Microsoft Management Console is to create a framework that can standardise system management functionality.

Intended benefits
1. Reduction in training costs for administration—due to uniform user interface and functionality.
2. Provide ready-to-use framework for developers to extend existing MMC applications or write new ones for their own products.
3. Provide the flexibility of mixing specific functional areas from different applications and creating a custom administrative console.

What is MMC?
You can use Microsoft Management Console (MMC) to create, save, and open administrative tools (called MMC consoles) that manage the hardware, software, and network components of your Windows system. The console DOES NOT contain the code to administer the system/application in question. It only provides a structured hosting environment for administrative tools. You can add the following types of items to MMC.

A console has various user interface components within it. These include dialog boxes, context menus (menus which appear on right-clicking on a particular node), taskpads, wizards, toolbars and so on.

SnapIn
A SnapIn is a Component Object Model (COM) in-process server dynamic-link library (DLL). This COM interface is situated between MMC and the SnapIn. The MMC communicates with the SnapIn using a predefined methodology.

The SnapIn still needs to communicate with the application that it is administering. This communication is not controlled by MMC. The SnapIn developer can decide which method of communication to use between the SnapIn code and actual system.

Scope pane
The scope pane shows a hierarchical tree of nodes. Parent nodes can have further level child nodes. Each node typically has a context menu as well as property sheet and actions associated with it.

Results pane
Depending upon the node selected in the scope pane tree view, the results pane can display various types of visual interfaces. These are:

1. List view
2. ActiveX Control showing special UI and behaviour
3. Custom Web Page
4. Taskpad

List view is the most common view where the results pane simply shows resulting rows of information. An example of this view is the Event Viewer nodes, which display logged events as rows and information about each event in columns.

Developing MMC SnapIns
You need MMC SDK for this purpose. This SDK provides the required COM interfaces and technical documentation required to generate a SnapIn. There are many interfaces available. Depending upon your design goals, you can implement the required interfaces.

Platform SDK includes a SnapIn designer for Visual Basic. This designer is installed with the MMC samples from the Platform SDK. This is a simple and fast way of generating custom SnapIns. It finally creates the SnapIn DLL file.

A detailed description of the exact steps and code to write a sample SnapIn is beyond the scope of this article.

However, I definitely suggest that all architects/developers working on packaged products or complex projects, must try to explore providing MMC SnapIns for administering their solutions. Deploying a SnapIn is very easy. All that you require is the DLL created from the SDK/Designer, Visual Basic and MMC runtimes. That’s all.

Using WMI and Active directory
The actual code which administers your application/network or hardware can work with any communication mechanism or protocol. However, from the point of view of minimising coding and standardising the process of SnapIn development, WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) and Active Directory based integration should be preferred.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is based upon Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), an industry initiative to develop a standard technology for accessing management information in an enterprise environment. WMI uses the industry-standard Common Information Model (CIM) to represent systems, applications, networks, devices, and other managed objects in an enterprise environment.

Using WMI in writing SnapIns will ensure that the code written to access manageable objects is based upon open and standard methodologies. The development time and effort is also reduced drastically in most environments by using WMI.

Feedback
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About the Author Dr Nitin Paranjape is the Chairman and MD of Maestros (Mediline). He is a consultant with many organisations, covering appropriate technology utilisation, business application of relevant technology, application architecture and audit as well as knowledge transfer. He has authored more than 650 articles on various technology-related subjects. He can be contacted at nitin@mediline.co.in