System shutdown stalled due to Ignored Mode Resource in SOLVE:Operations Automation

Products

• SOLVE:Operations Automation
• SOLVE:Access Session Management
• SOLVE:FTS
• SOLVE

Issue/Introduction

System shutdown stalled due to Ignored Mode Resource in SOLVE:Operations Automation
 
During a recent system shutdown the shutdown stalled when SOLVE:Operations Automation failed to take any action to terminate a resource although all dependencies appeared to be met.
 
Further investigation showed that there were several child resources in Ignored Mode and one of those resources was in an actual state of failed.
By placing the failed task into an actual state of inactive SOLVE:Operations Automation initiated the termination of the parent task and the system shutdown was resumed. This behaviour is contrary to our expectation that a mode of ignored will cause a resource to be ignored regardless of state.
 
Was able to reproduce this behaviour using 2 usrcls resources set up as a parent and child. Place the child resource into ignored mode and then cause the resource to go to an actual state of failed (an ASF command will do). Note: the steps must be done in this order.
 
A TRI command against the parent task will have no effect. Change the actual state of the child task to inactive and the parent task will be terminated.
 

Environment

Release: SLFTS.00200-12-SOLVE:FTS
Component:

Resolution

IGNORED mode is pretty much the same as MANUAL mode – no automation will be performed on the resource – with the difference being that the resource in IGNORED mode will always show a LOGICAL state of OK (green on monitors).
 
So, while from a presentation point of view IGNORED and MANUAL are different, from an automated processing point of view they are the same.
 
IGNORED mode was added as a response to a specific customer request.
They had resources that they knew would not be in their desired states.
They just wanted them to show up as GREEN and OK on their monitors.
 
If you want resources to have no automation performed on them and also to be bypassed during startup and shutdown you could try using OFF mode.
The mode could later be changed via a process to MANUAL or AUTOMATED. Depending on what you are trying to achieve this may be a viable option.