Objects in a cell should always have only one primary name to avoid confusion. However, different people or applications may use the same object in different ways. Because it is helpful to have object names that are easy to remember, it may be useful to have a different name, an alias, for each different use.
For example, a cell administrator might want to use aliases when configuring and naming objects with CDS. That is, the cell administrator can create soft links that act as aliases or logicals for network resources. For example, a printer's device name could be lazer499west for cell administration or cost accounting purposes but desktop users may refer to it by an alias like ourlazer.
Aliases typically have no attributes of their own; aliases simply point to another object. Only the name for the actual object has attributes. In this way, when the attributes for the object change, the cell administrator needs only to update the object name, and all aliases automatically reflect the change.