Patent ID: 7925761

Claim:
A method for implementing a dead man dependency technique in a cluster comprising a plurality of interconnected nodes, one of the nodes comprising a cluster resource manager, and one of the nodes comprising a policy engine, the policy engine maintaining at least one dependency associated with a first resource executing on one of the nodes, the method comprising: responsive to a status change of an attribute associated with the first resource, the policy engine receiving from the cluster resource manager an indication of the status change; the policy engine receiving from the cluster resource manager information regarding a configuration of the cluster; responsive to receipt of the status change indication and the configuration information, identifying by the policy engine a manner of terminating the first resource and migrating the first resource to another one of the nodes; and providing by the policy engine to the cluster resource manager an instruction sequence for causing the identified manner of terminating the first resource and migrating the first resource to another one of the nodes.