Distributed Name Service (DNS) Management Programming Manual

1 Introduction
46958 Tandem Computers Incorporated 1–1
The Tandem Distributed Name Service (DNS) provides object management in a
Tandem NonStop system or an Expand network; it does this by managing a
distributed and partly replicated name database that models those objects. DNS
depends on the Tandem Guardian 90 operating system and the Transaction
Monitoring Facility (TMF). DNS supports both interactive and programmatic object-
management interfaces. This manual describes the DSM programmatic interfaces to
the DNS subsystem.
DNS is part of the set of Tandem management products known collectively as
Distributed Systems Management (DSM). DSM provides two types of management
interfaces to subsystems: commands that perform operations on subsystem objects and
event messages that report significant events detected by the subsystem. Commands
provide a two-way interface: a human operator or management application sends a
command to a subsystem, and the subsystem then performs some action and returns a
response to the operator or application. Event messages, on the other hand, provide a
one-way interface: information flows from the subsystem to the operator or
management application, but no information is returned.
Note DNSCOM supplies the interactive interface that allows you to control and monitor a DNS name database
using interactive commands and to make queries against the DNS name database. DNSCOM is
described in the Distributed Name Service (DNS) Management Operations Manual.
The DNS programmatic interface also controls, monitors, and queries the DNS name
database. However, these operations are programmatically requested by management
applications issuing the DNS programmatic commands through the DSM Subsystem
Programmatic Interface (SPI).
Another part of the DSM product set, the Event Management Service (EMS), collects
and distributes event messages generated by DNS and other subsystems interacting
with DNS, such as the Guardian 90 file system. EMS performs these functions
regardless of whether DNS is managed interactively or programmatically. EMS
includes printing and compatibility distributor processes that can print or display
event messages for operators. The SPI and EMS interfaces are described this this
manual. See the Distributed Systems Management (DSM) Programming Manual for more
information about SPI. For more information on EMS, refer to the Event Management
Service (EMS) Manual.
Another DSM product, the ViewPoint console application, provides screens that allow
selective viewing of the event messages collected by EMS. For more information on
using ViewPoint, refer to the VIEWPOINT Manual.