Focal Point IntellaFLASH™

Why IntellaFLASH™?

• IBM is limiting the amount of Internal Storage that can be configured on a server thus more Power users are moving to External Storage solutions.
• IT departments want to consolidate and share storage within their heterogenous environments.
• Companies are looking to reduce or eliminate backups but still need or want a full daily backup.
• Less than 1/3 of H/A users can set aside the time to fully execute a full switch test.
• Customers are looking for Continuous Data Protection (CDP).
• IT Departments want to eliminate the time it takes to create and update Test/Development environments.
• IT departments want an easier way to manage the flash features and capabilities.

High availability and Fault Tolerance

Both of these concepts are essential to the continued safe and assured operation of the enterprise data center. A major provider of third-party high availability solutions, Vision Solutions, defines software HA solutions as those designed to protect data, minimize downtime and maximize resources for the modern data center. This traditional type of HA solution has existed for 20 years on IBM Power / Systems iSeries / AS/400 family.

FlashCopy

IBM provides FlashCopy™ functionality to duplicate large amounts of data and objects on the IBM Storwize family. Focal Point’s IntellaFLASH™ Solution provides a reference architecture that brings together the business benefits of HA for IBM i users in a bundled solution consisting of a managed service incorporating hardware, software and specialized services.

Logical Replication with IntellaFLASH™ in an IBM i Environment

Logical Replication is the basis of any high availability software product. It is also referred to as traditional mirroring. This scenario shows three separate customers on three separate servers/LPARs mirroring data to the IBM i target server. The target server is attached to an IBM Storwize external disk storage system (V3700, V5000 or V7000). During the mirroring process, the HA software replicates data (logical groups) from the source server to the target server connected to the Storwize family. Any missing objects not selected in the replication process will be missing in the target data groups or volumes. IntellaFLASH™ flashes the contents of Location 1 Target (volume 1) to IntellaFLASH™.

This scenario has several benefits:

• IntellaFLASH™ eliminates user downtime needed to make a FlashCopy and start DR testing to identify any missing objects resulting from the original logical replication process.
• IntellaFLASH™ benefits the testing process by permitting as many test copies of the data/volumes as desired.
• IntellaFLASH™ also benefits the backup process by performing live backups while logical replication continues no need to suspend mirroring.
• IntellaFLASH™ simplifies the quality test assurance process by ensuring that all data during the testing process is in sync.
• IntellaFLASH™ facilitates live code updates and PTF level updates by allowing them first to be applied to the IntellaFLASH™ for testing before being applied to the production machine
• IntellaFLASH™ facilitates report testing following critical upgrades.
• IntellaFLASH™ supports the BRMS environment and Tivoli Storage Manager.
• IntellaFLASH™ is available in a single bundled service it’s IntellaFLASH™ in a Box.