iSeries HA Continuous IBM i High Availability Software

iSeries HA Continuous high availability software enables 100% availability using real time two way Active-Active IBM i replication, eliminating downtime for both planned and unplanned downtime, and providing the maximum availability. The difference between standard iSeries HA and continuous high availability for IBM i, is the difference of tolerating minutes of downtime versus only seconds. In an Active-Active role swap scenario, the time it takes to redirect users to the recovery iSeries network address, determines how long users will be unable to continue their work. Both IBM i high availability configuration options will prevent data loss, however replication configuration is different in an Active-Active environment, where both iSeries systems are in production mode running the same applications, concurrently have reading and writing of the same data, and both iSeries systems actively serve as a DR system.

IBM i HA high availability environments utilizing the standard configuration with positional database replication to the failover iSeries are capable of quickly restarting business application and resuming transactions for users, however switching to the failover system involves waiting for the completion replicated changes on the target database, switching the direction of the replication, starting the applications, and redirecting users to the new server. iSeries HA high availability software automates this switch process, delivering the fastest possible switch times, but it is not as fast as an Active-Active “keyed replication” configuration.

IBM i HA continuous high availability solution protects your iSeries data and keep your business operations on the iSeries running 100% of the time during unplanned production outages and during planned maintenance and upgrade type scenarios. The IBM i Active-Active replication configurations provides the highest level of availability for an IBM iSeries environment, and designed for companies that can only afford seconds of downtime.

IBM i HA Continuous High Availability Features

• Active-Active “keyed replication” for maximum recovery time, measured in seconds
• Workload balancing allows production work (not read only) on multiple systems
• Prevents data loss in any situation
• Flexible combinations of different hardware, storage, OS, and location types
• Two-way replication and to multiple systems
• Scales for the most demanding volumes of transaction environments
• Utilizes OS400 journaling to ensure data integrity
• Replicates only changes for maximum efficiency and minimal bandwidth usage
• Supports replication of over 70 different object types
• Replication from and to internal and external storage
• Allows for role swap simulation for failover testing (without impacting production)
• Monitors recovery system to detect and repair unauthorized changes
• Autonomous self-healing features that minimizes daily monitoring
• Detailed and automated audit reports
• email notifications and SNMP alerts
• Allows recovery systems to be used to run queries and reports
• Intuitive browser interface to monitor and manage operations
• Single click failover simplicity
• Setup wizard for implementing high availability best practices
• Centralized management of all HA environments with birds eye, real-time status
• Incorporates customizable procedures to automate tasks that eliminate human error
• Includes iSeries performance optimization
• Target side monitoring
• Upgradable to Continuous Availability Edition

A key strength of high availability solutions is its decades of experience and utilization of IBM OS400 remote journaling. It very efficiently gets all data changes from production (including those not covered by remote journaling, such as database files, data areas, data queues and IFS objects), into a buffer on the recovery system. Multiple apply paths are used to apply the changes on the recovery iSeries. OS400 journaling enables a near zero “seconds” Recovery Point Objective (RPO), even when the apply process must be halted to allow other operations against the backup copy to be completed. For instance, in the event of maintenance tasks such as a backup, producton pushes changes to a buffer on the recovery system when the apply process is halted and makes data on the backup servers available for read only operations.

Some common reasons to consider High Availability solution instead of a Disaster Recovery solution

• Your recovery time objective is minutes, not hours
• Two-way replication is needed (when target system becomes production, and target needs to replicate changes to original production)
• Planned down time events costs the company to much money
• Replication to and from a switchable IASP
• Role Swaps to and from multiple systems

Optional Services

• Installation, configuration and training
• Various levels of managed services, includes annual role swap testing
• Role swap preparation and testing
• Unplanned role swap assistance
• Adjustments and optimization
• Software upgrades, fixes and service packs

Continuous High Availability System Requirements:

• OS400 V6R1 or higher (production and target systems can be at different version/release levels)