IBM Power Disaster Recovery Story: From V5R3 to V7R4 in 36 Hours
Explore this blog about a company that had a hardware failure and their disaster recovery plan did not work. Racksquared helped them completely recover in 36 hours.
Read this BlogDisaster Recovery Options to Meet Your Recovery Point and Time Objectives
Knowing your recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) will guide you in selecting the right solution for your business. Racksquared offers High Availability, Warm Server, and Reserved Hardware Solutions.
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IBM i High Availability with Rocket iCluster
Fast Recovery when Downtime is not an Option
For companies with a very short recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO), an HA solution is your best option. With an HA solution, your LPAR is fully operational and kept in sync with your production system via Rocket iCluster replication software. The replication software continuously copies data, objects, and transactions from your production IBM i system to your HA disaster recovery system.
This solution can be implemented with your on-premises production system or a cloud hosted production system. With an HA Solution you can expect to recover your IBM Power infrastructure with:
Recovery Time Objective: 60 Minutes
Recovery Point Objective: Less than 5 minutes
Key Capabilities with Rocket iCluster
- Real-time replication of Db2 for i, data areas/queues, IFS, configuration objects, and authorities via remote journal and change capture.
- Automated/supervised role swaps with dependency-aware sequencing and pre/post-swap exits.
- Integrity checks: audit/repair, conflict detection, apply lag monitoring, object authority synchronization.
- Granular replication policies per library/object; bandwidth throttling, compression, and resynchronization.
- Multi-node topologies (one-to-one, one-to-many), replication across Power on-prem and Power Virtual Server.
How it Works
Establish Networking
Racksquared's Network team will work with customer to establish connectivity from customer sites to Racksquare's data centers.
Install
SoftwareSoftware is installed on the production and target replication server. Racksquared's IBM i administrators will with customer to determine what is replicated to target server.
Verify Replication and Monitor
Our IBM i Administrators will verify that replicated items are meeting customer's recovery point objective and establish monitoring to to keep items in sync.
Schedule Disaster Recovery Test
Our IBM i experts can work with you on various levels of DR testing including verification, isolated test, simulated test or full failover.
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IBM i Warm Server
For companies that want a server on standby but don’t need real time data replication, a Warm Hardware Solution is your best option. With a Warm Hardware, your LPAR is fully operational and has a copy of your latest Save21 option restored. In the event of a disaster our IBM i administrators would restore the latest backup to bring the server current saving time from doing a full restore. This solution can be performed with a physical tape delivered to our facility or customers can leverage a Cybernetics or LaserVault solution to keep their latest backup at our site.
This solution can be implemented with your on-premises production system or a cloud hosted production system. With a Warm Server Solution you can expect to recover your IBM Power infrastructure with:
Recovery Time Objective: Receipt of last backup and restore time
Recovery Point Objective: Last backup
How it Works
Establish Networking
Racksquared's Network team will work with customer to establish connectivity from customer sites to Racksquared's data centers.
Build
Warm ServerRacksquared will build out the server with live and reserved resources and restore the latest Save 21 provided by the customer.
Establish Restore Points
Our IBM i administrators will with our customers to establish a regular schedule for restores on the server.
Schedule Disaster Recovery Test
Customers can schedule with our IBM i administrators a restore of their lastest backup to verify data integrity and restore times.
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IBM i Reserved Hardware
Guaranteed Access to Resources in the event of a Disaster
Companies that depend on their IBM i system but have a longer recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) can benefit from a Reserved Hardware Solution. With a reserved hardware solution, you are guaranteed access to hardware, software and personnel for recovery of your infrastructure in the event of a disaster.
This solution can be implemented with your on-premises production system or a cloud hosted production system. With a Reserved Hardware Solution you can expect to recover your IBM Power infrastructure with:
Recovery Time Objective: 24-48 hours
Recovery Point Objective: Your Last Backup
How it Works
Reserve
HardwareRacksquared will work with customer to reserve the required resources in one of our data centers.
Establish
NetworkingCustomer and Racksquared's Network team will work to establish connectivity from customer sites to our data centers.
Schedule Disaster Recovery Testing
Customers can schedule time with our IBM i administrators to restore their latest backup to verify data integrity and restore times.
If Disater
StrikesUpon declaration of a disaster, Racksquared will work with customer to enable IBM I infrastructure and network connectivity.
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In Summary
Comparing IBM i Disaster Recovery Options
Feature High Availability Warm Server Reserved Hardware RTO (Recovery Time) Less than an hour Restore time from last backup 24-48 hours RPO (Data Loss Risk) Minimal Last Backup Last Backup Recovery Real Time Scheduled Restore Backup Based Automation High Moderate Low
"We don’t worry about the future of our system or how we are going to support it anymore"
- Nick Klintworth – IT – Nickles Bakery
Industry Insights from Racksquared
IBM iSeries Disaster Recovery: Lessons learned from a hardware failure
Several years ago, I was working with a company that had a double hard drive failure on their iSeries requiring a complete reload of the server. The good news, they had solid backup procedures in place and no data was lost.
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The IBM Power Trap: 3 Mistakes that Leave you Stuck
ut for some, IBM Power has become a trap from which they can’t escape. This is not a malicious trap that suddenly jumps up and grabs you but rather a trap that is triggered by a series of decisions made over time with each compounded by the previous.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Your RTO and RPO will dictate which solutions work best for you. If you have a very low RTO and RPO, you should explore a high availability solution.
Both solutions are priced by the number of IBM Power servers you have and the amount of storage you need in the cloud. Contact us to talk about your business requirements and to get a quote.
Racksquared installs Rocket iCluster on both IBM i (iseries, AS/400) systems to keep them in sync at all times to ensure minimal data loss.