Patent ID: 7383430

Claim:
In a computer system comprising a plurality of resources, an automatic availability manager for monitoring at least some of the plurality of resources, and an agent to configure resource groups, each resource group specifying a group of resources to be monitored by the automatic availability manager and at least one action to be taken by the automatic availability manager upon a determination that at least one of the group of resources has failed or is functioning improperly, a method comprising: (A) receiving a request from a requestor, at the agent, to configure at least one requested resource group, the request defining at least one characteristic of the at least one requested resource group; (B) determining whether the at least one characteristic of the at least one requested resource group is valid; and (C) when it is determined in (B) that the at least one characteristic is not valid, communicating with the requestor to inform the requestor that the at least one requested resource group is not valid.