IBM i / AS400 / iSeries / System i Users

What Is Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem?

IBM Storage FlashSystem provides simplified asynchronous replication between two systems. This means you can replicate your production system to a target system beyond 28 miles for Disaster Recovery (DR).

Replication intervals can be adjusted from daily to every 15 minutes. When combined with IBM i remote journaling, Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem allows you to move your users to your target system to recover from point of last transmission in a matter of minutes.

How Does Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem Work?

Cloud400 leverages IBM Storage FlashSystem for storage-based Disaster Recovery (DR).

Your Cloud400 Production Logical Partition (LPAR), or virtual system, is hosted with IBM Storage FlashSystem.

With Cloud400 IBM FlashCopy and IBM Storage Level Global Mirroring, we schedule a snap shot to replicate your production environment to a Target IBM Storage FlashSystem. Generally, we snap shot every 15 minutes to replicate to the Target. This means that in the event of unexpected downtime at the Production data center, your data gap should not be longer than the last 15 minute replication.

When you add to Cloud400 IBM i Remote Journaling, your recover point is from point of last transmission.

Another benefit of Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem is reduced overhead. With traditional High Availability (HA) software, you are paying for HA licensing for the Production and the Target LPARs. With IBM Storage FlashSystem, Cloud400 replicates Production storage to the Target storage, until a disaster is declared. Once notified of production downtime, Cloud400 spins up that partition to the replicated Target storage to provide your users your recovered system. This means that there are NO extra overhead costs for the Target LPAR resources (processor and RAM memory), IBM and HA software, and your application software.

With Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem, you only pay for the Target storage. Should you need to recover your system at the Target data center, we spin up an LPAR and link to your Target IBM Storage FlashSystem data. You get more efficiency and also cost-effectiveness in your daily operation.

Why Is Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem Better?

Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem is better for several reasons.

First, when you buy a target server you configure it with peak load disaster recovery capacity. Said differently, you buy more capacity than you need for simple replication.

In contrast, with Cloud400 IBM Storage FlashSystem, you only pay for the remote storage. There is no remote active Logical Partition (LPAR); expensive HA software license, HA management and annual support fees; nor implementation fees. We allocate only as much resource as needed to support your FlashSystem storage. Because you use less resource than a physical target server, your cost is less.

Also, because you share a portion of our Cloud400 IBM Storage, the related IBM hardware and software fees are negligible compared to the cost of a physical target server.

Second, what our Cloud400 HA clients really like is that our data center is supported by IBM i experts 24/7. In most HA set ups we see, the target server is hosted at a branch location or a data center that has limited-to-no OS400 support. Our Cloud400 clients really like that experts are always at hand during downtime to help with user role swaps to the Cloud400 target server and back. When the unexpected strikes, it makes a big difference to have experts on hand.