DataMirror, Lakeview, Vision Line up Behind V4R4 Clustering
IBM has lined up support for its planned clustering capabilities in May's OS/400 V4R4 release from DataMirror Corp. (Markham, Ontario), Lakeview Technology (Oak Brook, Ill.) and Vision Solutions (Irvine, Calif.).
V4R4 of OS/400 will feature a cluster configuration manager, IP address takeover and switchover administration, among its continuous availability offerings.
DataMirror's High Availability Suite, with its integrated Cluster Resources Services APIs, will expand the current high services level of the AS/400 into continuous availability. It will also allow customers to manage all systems in the cluster and monitor all critical data and applications from a single workstation. Customers will use HA Suite to define nodes in a cluster and determine what data is replicated to specific nodes within the cluster.
"DataMirror High Availability Suite together with IBM and cluster proven software solutions will create a comprehensive high availability clustering solution," says Debra Thompson, VP, enterprise servers, at IBM's AS/400 Division. "This all adds up to higher performance in the areas of planned and unplanned outage as well as cost of ownership. We anticipate that with this new capability, a far wider share of commercial users will adopt continuous availability strategies."
Lakeview's Mimix Availability Management software solutions will also support V4R4's clustering capabilities by providing real-time data and object replication between AS/400 clustered systems. The new OS/400 clustering technology will leverage Mimix to assure a viable system is continuously available to end-users when planned maintenance operations or unplanned disasters bring down a system in a clustered environment. Mimix will monitor all systems within a cluster for availability.
Thompson says IBM is likewise pleased to have Lakeview's early support for its clustering initiative.
"Clustering requires not only the clustering awareness capability in OS/400, but also availability management software, as well as applications which work with the clustering APIs. Availability management software such as Lakeview's Mimix is an important part of the solution.
Vision Solutions will integrate IBM clustering capabilities into their Vision Suite high availability offering, providing cluster management, mirroring of objects and data between AS/400s in the cluster, and the intelligence to detect and manage the rapid transfer of applications from one AS/400 to another.
Vision Suite will also feature a new graphical user interface to simplify the installation, configuration and management of AS/400 clusters and will work with other application providers to offer near seamless switchover between AS/400s within a cluster.
"These solutions will mean improved availability, manageability and simplified planning and installment capability," says Thompson.
--D. Callaghan