Procedures and steps are a highly customizable means of performing operations. A set of default procedures is shipped with MIMIX for frequently used operations. These default procedures include the ability to start and end replication for application groups, perform pre-check activity for switching, switch application groups, perform virtual switch testing, run data protection reports for nodes, and prepare MIMIX for performing a target node backup. Each operation is performed by a procedure that consists of a sequence of steps and multiple jobs. Each step calls a predetermined step program to perform a specific sub-task of the larger operation. Steps also identify runtime attributes that determine how the procedure will start processing the step and how it will respond if the step ends in error.