Chapter 3

Overview of the Service Availability Architecture

Dave Penkler

Hewlett-Packard, Grenoble, France

The purpose of this chapter is to provide readers with some background and an overview of the architecture and the service availability (SA) interface specifications published by the SA Forum. We present the software architecture of the SA Forum system by examining how the functional, dynamic, and static views are reflected in the specifications. An overview of the hardware and application interface specifications is given, illustrated by the functions, interactions, and groupings of the different services according to their role in the system architecture. The essential and optional dependencies and interrelations between the services are discussed. We conclude with some reflections on open issues and future directions.

3.1 Introduction

The Service Availability (SA) Forum architecture is presented as a logical software architecture that is comprised of a set of interface abstractions, operational models, and information models. The architecture is not of itself prescriptive but is intended to provide a categorization of the service interfaces and a view of how the various services fit together in the context of a system. We begin by examining the context surrounding the architecture behind the SA Forum service availability specifications. This includes some historical background, the requirements and assumptions regarding the scope and physical systems that were used in selecting ...

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