1. An overview of the problem of dealing with multiple server processes on multiple hosts and sites. How to provide fault tolerance and how to scale up without losing control.
2. A discussion of the use of the basic technologies such as Distributed Objects and property lists etc to implement these systems.
3. Control ... how we start/stop server processes, prevent duplication of processes, support automated restart, and query the state of processes.
4. Configuration ... how we provide specific configuration to each process under central control, yet allow those servers to operate independently.
5. Logging/Alarming ... how we provide and manage simple and consistent audit/debug logging facilities for server processes, and how we integrate with SNMP.