The Desktop Management Interface (DMI) generates a standard framework for managing and tracking components in a desktop, notebook or server computer. Essentially, to the user, it is a table provided by the personal computer BIOS that can be parsed and which gives information about the BIOS and the computer system in a standardized way. Previously, such complete information was not available from a standardized source in the PC.

DMI is a part of the System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) specification which is related with SMI(System Management Interrupt) and SMM(System Management Mode). SMBIOS has been created to lay out data structures (and access methods) in BIOS which allows a user or application to store and retrieve information specifically about the PC in question.

Since 1999, Microsoft required OEMs and BIOS vendors to support the DMI interface/data set in order to have Microsoft certification.

DMI was the first desktop management standard and has been developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

The DMI Home Page is a repository of all DMI-related information from the specification to tools to support to the Product Registry of DMI-certified products. Due to the rapid advancement of DMTF technologies, such as Common Information Model (CIM), the DMTF defined an "End of Life" process for its Desktop Management Interface (DMI), which ended March 31, 2005.

Fully DMI-enabled PCs could also be monitored from a central management console in the network, but currently this depends on use of the protocols which allow this, eg. SNMP. The DMTF desktop management standard (DASH) is to replace DMI. DASH enables the remote management of desktop and mobile general purpose computers using WBEM, CIM, and WS-Management.

Definition

DMI is a layer of abstraction between system components and the software that manages them. The System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) is an extension of the Basic Input Output System (BIOS) that formulates and delivers this information to the operating system.

Additional services that can be implemented: MIF Data and Routines

When queries are made to a memory-resident agent that resides in the background, it responds by sending data in MIFs (Management Information Format) or activating MIF routines. Static data in a MIF would contain items such as model ID, serial number, memory and port addresses. A MIF routine could read memory and report its contents.

DMI and SNMP

DMI can co-exist with SNMP and other management protocols. For example, when an SNMP query arrives, DMI can fill out the SNMP MIB with data from its MIF. A single workstation or server can serve as a proxy agent that would contain the SNMP module and service an entire LAN segment of DMI machines.

DMI under Linux

The Linux kernel contains a DMI decoder and based on matches on DMI information, certain workarounds for problems with specific systems can be enabled (or disabled). To read all DMI information, the tool dmidecode is provided. It is part of the pmtools package on some Linux distributions.