A dependent resource requires, or depends on, another resource to operate. For example, if a Generic Application resource requires access to shared physical storage; it would depend on a Physical Disk resource. The following terms describe resources in a dependency relationship:

• A dependent resource depends on other resources (the dependencies).
• A dependency is a resource on which another resource depends.
• A dependency hierarchy is a series of dependency relationships such that resource A depends on resource B, resource B depends on resource C, and so on.

Resources in a dependency relationship obey the following rules:

• A dependent resource and all of its dependencies must be in the same group.
• The Cluster service takes a dependent resource offline before any of its dependencies are taken offline, and brings a dependent resource online after all its dependencies are online, as determined by the dependency hierarchy.

Some of the default resource types have required dependencies, as summarized in the following table.

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Build date: 3/14/2012