ISO/IEC 19831:2015描述了云基础设施即服务（IaaS）提供商和IaaS服务消费者之间管理交互的模型和协议。IaaS的基本资源（机器、存储和网络）建模的目的是为消费者提供对IaaS实现的管理访问，并促进支持该规范的云实现之间的可移植性。本文档使用HTTP指定了一个代表性状态传输（REST）风格的协议。然而，底层模型并不特定于HTTP，也可以将其映射到其他协议。 CIMI致力于管理供应商提供的基础设施的生命周期。CIMI并没有超出基础设施管理的范围，而是控制消费者选择在作为服务提供商提供的基础设施上运行的应用程序和服务。 尽管CIMI在某种程度上可能适用于其他云服务模型，如平台即服务（“PaaS”）或存储即服务（“SaaS”），但这些用途超出了CIMI的设计目标。

ISO/IEC 19831:2015 describes the model and protocol for management interactions between a cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Provider and the Consumers of an IaaS service. The basic resources of IaaS (machines, storage, and networks) are modeled with the goal of providing Consumer management access to an implementation of IaaS and facilitating portability between cloud implementations that support the specification. This document specifies a Representational State Transfer (REST)-style protocol using HTTP. However, the underlying model is not specific to HTTP, and it is possible to map it to other protocols as well. CIMI addresses the management of the lifecycle of infrastructure provided by a Provider. CIMI does not extend beyond infrastructure management to the control of the applications and services that the Consumer chooses to run on the infrastructure provided as a service by the Provider. Although CIMI may be to some extent applicable to other cloud service models, such as Platform as a Service ("PaaS") or Storage as a Service ("SaaS"), these uses are outside the design goals of CIMI.