Genders is a static cluster configuration database used for cluster
configuration management. It is used by a variety of tools and scripts for
management of large clusters. The genders database is typically replicated
on every node of the cluster. It describes the layout and configuration of
the cluster so that tools and scripts can sense the variations of cluster
nodes. By abstracting this information into a plain text file, it becomes
possible to change the configuration of a cluster by modifying only one file.