Distributed Name Service (DNS) Management Operations Manual

Subsystem Names
Introduction to DNS Names
2–2 31258 Tandem Computers Incorporated
Subsystem Names In a Tandem computer system, a subsystem is defined as a program or set of processes
that manages a cohesive set of objects. Examples of Tandem supplied subsystems are
the File Utility Program (FUP), the Pathway transaction processing system, and the
Spooler. A subsystem name identifies a Tandem subsystem, a subsystem you write,
or a subsystem that you buy from an independent software vendor.
Tandem subsystem names are defined to DNS during DNS initialization as described
in Section 3 under “Initializing and Starting DNS Configurations.” For most
environments, you do not need to define Tandem subsystem names yourself.
For each subsystem, DNS maintains the following information:
A subsystem name
Owner (usually the name of the company supplying the subsystem)
Subsystem number within the owner
Subsystem Managers As mentioned in Section 1, each subsystem has a management interface—an
interactive or programmatic interface through which a user can access the subsystem
and its objects by submitting requests.
A management process provides an interface to a subsystem; a manager process is
that part of a subsystem that provides the actual management of objects associated
with the subsystem.
Manager processes are identified by manager names. A subsystem manager name
must be unique on the node where it is defined. Manager process names refer to
either a process or a disk file recognized by the Guardian 90 operating system.
Examples of manager process are \SFO.$SYSTEM.SYSTEM.FUP and \NY.$PM. (DNS
allows you to define aliases for manager process names to simplify reference to them.
For example, BIG_APPLE can be an alias for \NY.$PM.)