Resource Simulator for IBM® Systems Director Data Model (hereafter referred to as "Resource Simulator") has easy-to-use commands that manage the resources in Systems Director. The module containing the commands can be automatically loaded by Systems Director. These commands extend Systems Director's CLI (command line) extension points, which are available from the common framework of IBM Systems Director; these commands also create the command line user console, issue commands, and read from the console. The following commands are available:

• smcli create: Creates resources
• smcli update: Updates properties of resources
• smcli setRel: Sets relationships between two resources
• smcli lsRel: Lists relationships between two resources.

This new Resource Simulator is intended to help software developers take advantage of Systems Director to easily develop their own functions without heavily relying on discovery. Resource Simulator has easy-to-use commands that help the user put in the simulated data dynamically and conveniently. This tool is an extension to IBM Systems Director and is also an Eclipse plug-in.

This technology runs on Windows®, AIX®, and Linux®.

How does it work?

Resource Simulator is based on two core services in Systems Director: the Resource Caching Service, which is used to access the underlying data in the Systems Director Database; and the Resource Metadata Service, which provides a way to retrieve the definition and metadata for the various types of resources and relationships that are stored in Systems Director. With Resource Simulator, it is not necessary to discover the managed resources; instead, the resources can be easily created within Systems Director by using embedded commands such as smcli create, smcli update, and so on.

Jue Wang, who joined IBM Systems and Technology Group in April 2007, is a software engineer and a member of the Beijing team working on IBM Systems Director development for System p®.