Step 2: Group the Resources

Some of the required resources that were identified in the previous step are candidates for aggregation:

  • Resources that are made of multiple components. In our example, these are:
    • CICS1AR1, CPSMCMAS, and CPSMWUI, which could be aggregated into a group called CICSAOR, so that they can be automated as a unit.
    • The group CICS®, which will contain resources CICSMAIN, CICS1TOR, CICS1FOR and the aggregated CICSAOR group.
    • The group DB2®, which will contain resources DB21MSTR, DB21IRLM, DB21DIST, and DB21DBM1.
  • Resources that are used by multiple exploiters. In our example, these are:
    • VTAM® and TCP/IP, which are used by the data warehouse and the Web server. We will aggregate them into a group called NET.
    • DB21MSTR, DB21IRLM, DB21DIST, and DB21DBM1, which are used by the data warehouse and the Web server. We will aggregate them into a group called DB2.
  • Finally we implement the data warehouse as the group DWHAPG and the Web server as the group WBSRVAPG to allow nesting the other groups into them as required later (see Step 3: Nest the Groups).

Figure 1 shows a possible aggregation of all components into groups.

Figure 1. Application Groups
ApplicationGroups

In Figure 1, oval labels represent application groups and rectangular labels represent applications. For example, application group CICS contains applications CICSMAIN, CICS1TOR, CICS1FOR and the nested application group CICSAOR.