Patent ID: 8209568

Claim:
A method for implementing a backup technique in a cluster comprising a plurality of interconnected nodes, at least one of the nodes comprising a cluster resource manager, and at least one of the nodes comprising a policy engine, the policy engine maintaining at least one dependency associated with at least a first resource executing on at least one of the nodes, the method comprising: receiving by the cluster resource manager a backup request for the first resource from an administrator of the cluster; responsive to receipt of the backup request for the first resource, updating by the cluster resource manager the cluster configuration; communicating by the cluster resource manager to the policy engine a cluster status and the updated cluster configuration; providing by the policy engine to the cluster resource manager an instruction sequence for carrying out the requested backup, the instruction sequence being based on the dependency associated with the first resource; and responsive to receipt of the instruction sequence, carrying out by the cluster resource manager the requested backup of the first resource; wherein the policy engine maintains a dependency associated with a second resource with respect to the first resource; wherein the second resource depends on the first resource; and wherein the carrying out by the cluster resource manager the requested backup of the first resource further includes: identifying by the cluster resource manager a failure of one of the first and second resources; and responsive to the identification of the failure of the one of the first and second resources, performing by the cluster resource manager recovery of the failure using a dead man dependency technique.