4.2.2 Terms in Tivoli System Automation

There are many terms that we need to use when we use Tivoli System Automation as our automation tooling:

A cluster is a group of host systems under IBM Tivoli System Automation management.

A resource is any piece of hardware or software that can be defined to IBM Tivoli System Automation. These resources can be either defined manually by the administrator using the mkrsrc (make resource) command or through the harvesting functionality of the cluster infrastructure, whereby resources are automatically detected and prepared for use.
Fixed resource

A fixed resource is a resource that has only a single instance within the cluster. It represents one entity that is defined for a single node, and this is the only node on which it runs.
Floating resource

A floating resource is a resource that can run on several nodes in the cluster.

  • Attribute

A resource attribute describes some characteristics of a resource. There are two types of resource attributes: persistent attributes and dynamic attributes.

  • Resource group

Resource groups are the primary mechanism for automatic operations within TSA. A collection of resources can be included in a resource group, which can be called as a logical container. This container can help you control multiple resources as a single logical entity.

  • Equivalency

An equivalency is a collection of resources that provides the same functionality. For example, equivalencies are used for selecting network adapters that should host a same IP address.

  • Relationship

IBM Tivoli System Automation allows the definition of relationships between resources in a cluster. There are two different relationship types:
Start/stop relationships
Location relationships

  • Tie breaker

The tie breaker is used to determine which subcluster will have an operational quorum.
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