I keep having to use CIM in my scripts, but what is it? I understand how to use it, but where did it come from and what does it stand for. Like every developer I know, a search engine is the best tool to solve this mystery.

There is an industry standards organization called DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) that defined a standard named Common Information Model. By the way, this is the same group that defined MOF (Managed Object Framework) which is the standard below the covers of DTC. CIM is defined in the MOF standard and is a cross platform common definition of management information for systems, networks, and applications and services that allows for vendor extensions. How was that for acronym soup?

Mystery Solved.