This names a category of process or consumer that can use device resources -- a resource user type -- which groups related resource-consuming entities, like a family of IOS processes, for ERM tracking purposes. This type-level grouping is what a later object references when restricting a resource group to only contain resource users of one matching type, so it functions as a taxonomy key the rest of the ERM tables build on. A resource user type named 'IOS Process' would group together individual named processes like IP Input and BGP Router under one classification for monitoring purposes.