GDPS

GDPS V3.9 Enhancements

Simplified systems management

• GDPS/PPRC, GDPS/XRC, and GDPS/GM LOAD/RESET NOCLEAR option
• GDPS/PPRC alternate SYSRES support
• GDPS/XRC Query Services
• GDPS/GM enhanced, "intelligent" INITIALIZE and CLEANUP script statements
• GDPS/XRC site switch and return home
• GDPS/PPRC and GDPS/PPRC HyperSwap® Manager new messages to designate start/end of key activities
• GDPS/PPRC extended status information on the Standard Actions panel

Availability and scalability improvements

• GDPS/PPRC and GDPS/PPRC HyperSwap Manager improved HyperSwap availability by using dedicated XCF buffers for Controlling System and production system communication
• GDPS/PPRC and GDPS/PPRC HyperSwap Manager Health Check extensions
• GDPS/PPRC, GDPS/XRC, and GDPS/GM CBU/OOCoD CEC awareness and CBU multiple LIC record support
• GDPS/XRC consistent FlashCopy®
• GDPS/XRC automatic primary volume relabel detection and automated VOLSER Refresh Configuration
• GDPS/PPRC xDR support for two z/VM® proxies and automatic proxy switching

Detailed description of GDPS V3.9 enhancements can be found here (PDF, 124KB).

GDPS active-active continuous availability

GDPS active-active continuous availability (GDPS/A-A) is the next generation of GDPS and a fundamental paradigm shift for near continuous availability solutions. GDPS/A-A combines the best attributes of the existing suite of GDPS offerings and expands it to allow customers to achieve unlimited distances between their data center sites and achieve the recovery time objectives of 1 minute or less previously only available in a metro area solution.

GDPS/A-A is two or more sites, separated by unlimited distances, and having the same data, with cross-site workload monitoring and balancing. GDPS/A-A is planned to be delivered over time. The first configuration is the Active/Standby configuration.

GDPS V3.8 Enhancements

New zEnterprise support with:

• GDPS xDR, Open Lun Management, and DCM support for zEnterprise environment
• Application Continuous Availability / Disaster Recovery (CA/DR)
  • Up to 300 km
    • GDPS/PPRC and Tivoli System Automation Application Manager (App Man)
    • GDPS/PPRC and Veritas Cluster Servers (VCS).
  • Unlimited distance
    • GDPS/GM or GDPS/XRC with VCS
    • GDPS/GM with App Man (SOD)

Improved Availability with:

• Reduced impact of false freezes
• STP and Sysplex Timer recovery
• HyperSwap support for FB disk
• Extended monitoring
• LPAR and CEC awareness
• HyperSwap proactive notification of recovery processing

Improved Performance with:

• HyperSwap reduced message traffic

Improved Scalability with:

• UCB constraint relief for GDPS/XRC
• XRC timestamping support for z/VM guests
• IPL protection

zEnterprise support with:

• Synchronous remote copy up to 300 km
• GDPS/PPRC and Tivoli System Automation Application Manager (AppMan)
• GDPS/PPRC and Veritas Cluster Servers (VCS).
• Application continuous availability / distaster recovery at unlimited distance
• GDPS/XRC or GDPS/GM and VCS

Simplified System Management with:

• Support for Zero suspend FlashCopy for incremental FlashCopy
• Automated cleanup of persistent reserves and Concurrenet Copy data

New and improved tools:

• GDPS/MGM Incremental Resync phase 3
• Preserve Mirror tool support for alternate subchannel sets
• GDPS/PPRC configuration checker
• Global Mirror Monitor integrated into GDPS/GM
• Copy Once - device support
• GDPS Console Interface tool
• Installation Verification Program for xDR
• Query Services expended for GDPS/GM

More information on GDPS V3.8 can be found in announcement 611-014 (PDF, 54.16KB) Enhancements to IBM Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex ( GDPS ), dated February 22, 2011.

GDPS V3.7 Enhancements

Improved coordinated disaster recovery and planned site switches across heterogeneous servers with:

• GDPS distributed cluster manager (DCM) support extended to Windows servers. This allows GDPS, together with Veritas Cluster Server (VCS), to coordinate disaster recovery actions when VCS is managing Windows servers as well as servers running IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, or Linux.
• HyperSwap I/O timing triggers for z/VM and z/VM guests. This function provides the equivalence of IOT for z/VM, providing protection for z/VM and its guests.
• Automation extensions to allow a graceful startup and shut-down of z/VM and z/VM guests. This can avoid timeouts which require manual interactions.
• GDPS V3.7 support extended to SUSE SLES11.

Improved scalability with:

• UCB constraint relief with GDPS/PPRC and GDPS/PPRC HM support for secondary devices on alternate subchannel set. This effectively doubles the amount of usable UCBs from approximately 32K to 64K devices.

Increased availability with:

• GDPS/MGM Incremental Resynchronization tool to help allow continued D/R protection while reintroducing the intermediate site after a planned or unplanned outage of the intermediate site. By using incremental copy instead of full volume copies, this potentially reduces the disaster recovery exposure from hours down to minutes.
• Low-impact initial copy and resynchronization extended to distributed LUNs. This allows the initial copy or resynchronization operation to be performed even in the middle of first shift with negligible performance impact to the production workload, reducing the exposure window where the environment is without Freeze or HyperSwap protection, protecting the consistency group and providing near-continuous availability.

Enhanced system management with:

• Elimination of error prone tasks of manually defining Batch operators. Through synergestic functions GDPS and IBM Tivoli System Automation for z/OS are now designed to determine how many batch operators are needed and define them, thus simplifying installation and reducing the risk of errors.
• Additional GDPS Health Checks. These Health Checks are designed to:
  Ensure the controlling system has sufficient CPU capacity.
  Verify the GDPS/XRC System Data Mover LPARs have enough CPU and memory capacity

More information on GDPS V3.7 can be found in announcement 610-018 dated March 23, 2010: Enhancements to IBM Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex (GDPS).