Windows Remote Management (WinRM) Overview

Applies To: Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

This topic provides introductory overview information about Windows Remote Management (WinRM). Also contained within this topic, are links to additional information pertaining to WinRM.

Did you mean…

• Windows Remote Management 

• WS-Management Protocol on MSDN

• Remote Access (DirectAccess, Routing and Remote Access) Overview

WinRM description

Windows Remote Management (WinRM) is the Microsoft implementation of WS-Management Protocol, a standard Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)-based, firewall-friendly protocol that allows hardware and operating systems, from different vendors, to interoperate.

The WS-Management protocol was developed by a group of hardware and software manufacturers as a public standard for remotely exchanging management data with any computer device that implements the protocol.

Practical applications

WinRM is designed to improve hardware management in a network environment with various devices running a variety of operating systems. The entire design of the service is focused on monitoring and managing remote computers by implementing an interoperable standard protocol.

You can use WinRM scripting objects, the WinRM command-line tool, or the Windows Remote Shell command line tool WinRS to obtain management data from local and remote computers that may have baseboard management controllers (BMCs). If the computer runs a Windows-based operating system version that includes WinRM, the management data is supplied by Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

You can also obtain hardware and system data from WS-Management protocol implementations running on operating systems other than Windows in your enterprise. WinRM establishes a session with a remote computer through the SOAP-based WS-Management protocol rather than a connection through DCOM, as WMI does. Data returned to WS-Management protocol are formatted in XML rather than in objects.

The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) WMI provider is a standard WMI provider with classes that obtain baseboard management controller (BMC) sensor data from computers with appropriate hardware. IPMI data can be accessed using the WinRM scripting API, the WMI Scripting, or COM APIs. For more information about the WMI classes for which the IPMI provider supplies data, see Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) Classes.

See also

Following are links to other topics about WinRM.