Re: 24/7 questions: -- MIDRANGE-L

Larry,
Our shop just inherited four AS/400 system with NO DASD. All data storage is
handled by an EMC Symmetrix <sp?> storage system. As you say, it is SCSI
attached, not LAN, but I understand that other systems are LAN attached to the
same Symmetrix box.

I have investigated IBM's Shark SAN, and it as some interesting features, but it
needs more work for the AS/400 world. If they would support the AS/400's optical
link, it would be a good start, but a Giga ethernet conection might work.

One intersting point on the Symmetix. there is no load source on the AS/40s. The
load source is a virtual drive in the Symmetrix. You can electronically switch
the virtual DASD from one AS/400 to another, then IPL and the second system will
be using the same DASD as the first was. They say this works even though the two
AS/400s are different configurations! That really blows me away. Or confuses me.
What happens to the mismatches in the configurations? I don't have a clue how
that is handled. We are just beginning to work on these inherited systems, so we
don't have all of the information yet.
Bob

Larry Bolhuis wrote:

> Matt,
>
>   If you are truly 24/7 you WILL indeed need to do something to
> accomplish backups.  Most likely a Mirroring product such as
> DataMirror's Transformation Server(*) to another system (or LPAR
> partition) that you can pause while backing up the second machine.  Even
> with this solution though you will need to identify a time WHEN to pause
> the mirroring or you will have a clean backup (from the OS/400
> perspective) but not neccesarily from the applications perspective (ie
> transactions are only partially applied).
>
>   Network Attached storage is not really a player in the AS/400 market
> yet. Currently the only way to attach non 'native' AS/400 storage is
> with 6501 SCSI cards and that really buys you nothing.  Due to Single
> Level Storage architechure it's not likely from my perspective that you
> will see network attached storage any time soon.
>
>   HTH - Larry
>
> (*) We represent DataMirror
>
> Matt Patee wrote:
> >
> > Hello all. I would like to revisit a topic that has come up more than once.
> > My shop will become a 24/7 shop within the next year, and I would
> > appreciate any and all advice on the best ways to accomplish this.
> > Mirroring servers, high availability software, shared journaling, etc. I
> > would like to know who has 24/7 shop and how they are managing. What are
> > you using for backup, and disaster recovery solutions?
> >
> > Separately I have a questions regarding Network attached storage. Is anyone
> > using this in conjunction with their 400? Does anyone know if it works? Is
> > there any documentation I could look into?
> >
> > Any and all help will be appreciated.
> >
> > -Matt
>
> --
> Larry Bolhuis         |  It's 10PM.
> Arbor Solutions, Inc  |  Have you rebooted your NT Server yet today?
> (616) 451-2500        |
> (616) 451-2571 -fax   |
> lbolhuis@arbsol.com   |
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