GDPS

GDPS/PPRC uses a combination of storage subsystem and Parallel Sysplex technology triggers to capture, at the first indication of a potential disaster, a consistent secondary site copy of the data using the PPRC freeze function. The freeze function, initiated by automated procedures, is designed to freeze the image of the secondary data at the very first sign of a disaster, even before any database managers will be aware of I/O errors. This prevents the logical contamination of the secondary copy of data that would occur if any storage subsystem mirroring were to continue after a failure that prevents some, but not all secondary volumes from being updated. GDPS/PPRC includes automation to manage remote copy pairs, automatically invokes CBU, and automation to restart applications on the recovery site.

GDPS/PPRC has the following attributes:

• Continuous Availability solution for planned and unplanned outages
• Near transparent Disaster Recovery solution
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) less than an hour
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of zero (optional)
• Protects against localized area disasters (distance between sites are limited to 100 km fiber)

The GDPS/PPRC HyperSwap Manager is designed to extend the availability attributes of Parallel Sysplex redundancy in a single site to disk subsystems. It provides the ability to transparently switch primary PPRC disk subsystems with the secondary PPRC disk subsystems for a planned or unplanned reconfiguration.

Remote Copy Management Facility (RCMF) for PPRC provides a central point of control to provide a global PPRC configuration awareness. With a single keystroke function invocation, you can initialize & maintain remote copy configuration, initiate functions per pair, subsystem or all, automatically establish target configuration at system startup, and supports adding, moving, removing pairs, subsystems, links.

Extended Remote Copy (XRC) is a combined hardware and z/OS software asynchronous remote copy solution. All critical data is mirrored between the primary and secondary sites. Consistency of the data is maintained via the Consistency Group function within the System Data Mover. GDPS/XRC includes automation to manage remote copy pairs and automates the process of recovering the production environment with limited manual intervention, including invocation of CBU, thus providing significant value in reducing the duration of the recovery window.

GDPS/XRC has the following attributes:

• Disaster recovery solution
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) between an hour to two hours
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) less than two minutes, typically 3-5 seconds
• Protects against localized as well as regional disasters (distance between sites is unlimited)
• Nominal remote copy performance impact
• No requirement for a sysplex on the production (site 1) location
• Requires a single copy of the data at the disaster recovery site

Remote Copy Management Facility (RCMF) for XRC provides a central point of control to provide a global XRC configuration awareness. With a single keystroke function invocation, you can initialize & maintain remote copy configuration, initiate functions per pair, subsystem or all, automatically establish target configuration at system startup, and supports adding, moving, removing pairs, subsystems, links.

GDPS®/Global Mirror can help to provide a two-site automated disaster recovery and backup solution at virtually any distance, for the z/OS® and open systems environments by mirroring critical data between primary and recovery sites.

Data consistency is maintained at the recovery site across all supported platforms using the proven IBM® TotalStorage® Global Mirror copy technology. GDPS helps provide automation technologies, which are designed to manage the mirroring environment, monitor the mirroring configuration and automate management and recovery tasks. This can provide the ability to synchronize IBM , System z®/z9® systems and open systems data to the same point in time at the recovery site. GDPS/Global Mirror can provide:

• An end-to-end business continuity and recovery solution
  • Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is designed to be as low as five seconds
  • Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is designed to be under two hours
• Automation of z/OS systems restart in the recovery site, which can be located at virtually any distance from the primary site, in the event of an outage at the primary site
• A single data consistency point between System z/z9 systems and open systems data
• Management of consistency groups is provided by IBM TotalStorage Global Mirror copy technology

Learn more about the new enhancements in GDPS/Global Mirror in Hardware Announcement 605-035, dated October 18, 2005.

More information on the GDPS/Global Mirror service offering can be found in: http://www.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/offering/its/a1022703

GDPS/PPRC together with GDPS/XRC in a multi-target configuration provides the ability to combine the advantages of metropolitan-distance business continuity and regional or long-distance disaster recovery. This can provide a near-continuous availability solution with no data loss and minimum application impact across two sites located at metropolitan distances, and a disaster recovery solution with recovery at an out-of-region site with minimal data loss. This enables a z/OS three-site high availability and disaster recovery solution for even greater protection from planned and unplanned outages.

Combining the benefits of PPRC and XRC, GDPS MzGM enables:

• HyperSwap capability for near-continuous availability for a disk control unit failure
• An option designed to enable no data loss
• Data consistency to allow restart, not recovery
• A long-distance disaster recovery site for protection against a regional disaster
• Minimal application impact
• GDPS automation to manage remote copy pairs, manage a Parallel Sysplex configuration, and perform planned as well as unplanned reconfigurations
• The same primary volume is used for both PPRC and XRC data replication and can support two different GDPSs: GDPS/PPRC for metropolitan distance and business continuity, and GDPS/XRC for regional distance and disaster recovery.

Since GDPS/XRC supports System z data only (z/OS, Linux on System z), GDPS Metro/z/OS Global Mirror is a System z solution only.

GDPS/PPRC together with GDPS/Global Mirror in a cascading configuration provides the ability to combine the advantages of metropolitan-distance business continuity and regional or long-distance disaster recovery. This can provide a near-continuous availability solution with no data loss and minimum application impact across two sites located at metropolitan distances, and a disaster recovery solution with recovery at an out-of-region site with minimal data loss. This enables a z/OS three-site high availability and disaster recovery solution for even greater protection from planned and unplanned outages.

Combining the benefits of PPRC and Global Mirror, GDPS MGM enables:

• HyperSwap capability for near-continuous availability for a disk control unit failure
• An option designed to enable no data loss
• Data consistency to allow restart, not recovery
• A long-distance disaster recovery site for protection against a regional disaster
• Minimal application impact
• GDPS automation to manage remote copy pairs, manage a Parallel Sysplex configuration, and perform planned as well as unplanned reconfigurations

GDPS/MGM has the benefit of being able to manage data across the enterprise, not being limited to System z formatted data, and provide data consistency across all the data

GDOC was described in Services announcement 606–029, titled IBM Implementation Services for Geographically Dispersed Open Clusters (GDOC), dated December 12, 2006.

GDPS is designed to be a comprehensive end–to–end continuous availability and/or disaster recovery solution for IBM System z servers. IBM Implementation Services for GDOC addresses the planning, installation, automation, testing, and management requirements of a disaster recovery solution using proven methods and automation software from Symantec, including Veritas Cluster Server.

More information on GDPS/GDOC can be found in announcement GDPS/GDOC Integration, dated November 20, 2007.