About resources and resource dependencies

Resources are hardware or software entities that make up the application. Disk groups and file systems, network interface cards (NIC), IP addresses, and applications are a few examples of resources.

Resource dependencies indicate resources that depend on each other because of application or operating system requirements. Resource dependencies are graphically depicted in a hierarchy, also called a tree, where the resources higher up (parent) depend on the resources lower down (child).

Figure: Sample resource dependency graph shows the hierarchy for a database application.

Figure: Sample resource dependency graph

Sample resource dependency graph

Resource dependencies determine the order in which resources are brought online or taken offline. For example, you must import a disk group before volumes in the disk group start, and volumes must start before you mount file systems. Conversely, you must unmount file systems before volumes stop, and volumes must stop before you deport disk groups.

A parent is brought online after each child is brought online, and this continues up the tree, until finally the application starts. Conversely, to take a managed application offline, VCS stops resources by beginning at the top of the hierarchy. In this example, the application stops first, followed by the database application. Next the IP address and file systems stop concurrently. These resources do not have any resource dependency between them, and this continues down the tree.

Child resources must be brought online before parent resources are brought online. Parent resources must be taken offline before child resources are taken offline. If resources do not have parent-child interdependencies, they can be brought online or taken offline concurrently.

Atleast resource dependency

A new type of resource dependency has been introduced wherein a parent resource can depend on a set of child resources. The parent resource is brought online or remains online only if a minimum number of child resources in this resource set are online.

For example, if an application depends on five IPs and if this application has to be brought online or has to remain online, at least two IPs must be online. You can configure this dependency as shown in the figure below.

The system creates a set of child IP resources and the application resource will depend on this set. For this example, the assumption is that the application resource is res1 and the child IP resources are res2, res3, res4, res5, and res6.

Figure: Atleast resource dependency graph

Atleast resource dependency graph

If two or more IP resources come online, the application attempts to come online. If the number of online resources falls below the minimum requirement, (in this case: 2), resource fault is propagated up the resource dependency tree.

Note:

VOM and Java GUI does not support atleast resource dependency and so the dependency is shown as normal resource dependency.

More Information

Configuring atleast resource dependency