| Accelerating System
i backups without changing existing business practices |
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| Backing up System
data is a critical but often time consuming activity.
When the server is offline to complete a full backup
the services that run on that server are unavailable
and the business islosing money. Making sure backups
can be completed quickly and easily is paramount. This
is why every System i (iSeries/AS400) environment could
benefit from Tributary Systems Storage Director. Tributary
Systems Storage Director delivers: |
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- Quicker backups
- Less operational downtime
- Complete transparency
- Better usage of existing tape hardware
- Remote replication of data for Disaster Recovery
(DR)
- Greater connectivity to a wider range of devices
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| Quicker Backups |
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| Tributary Systems Storage Director presents
an IBM 3584 tape library with LTO drives to System i.
These are virtual devices that exist on a high-speed
disk-cache that is capable of accepting data far faster
than physical tape. By using virtual devices, backups
from multiple LPARs (logical partitions) and System
i machines can occur at the same time thereby shortening
your backup window. Even when only one System i machine
is present, you can present as many virtual resources
to your System i server as are required to complete
the backup in the desired timeframe even if the same
number of physical drives do not exist. This means backups
happen faster than if you were using physical tape resources. |
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| Less Operational Downtime |
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| By making backups faster Tributary Systems
Storage Director ensures that you have less operational
down- time. For example, when System i locks the user,
system and data libraries until backups are finished,
the system becomes unusable. If System i operators in
the UK wanted to access their counterpart systems in
the US, they would have to wait until backups are complete.
When backups are sent to Tributary Systems Storage Director,
they can occur in half the time which means operators
can get onto their System i servers sooner. |
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| Complete Transparency |
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| Making backups faster is very important
but being able to get your data back even if Tributary
Systems Storage Director is unavailable is critical.
Tributary Systems Storage Director retains a 1:1 relationship
between the volume that BRMS (or any other System i
backup application) writes data to and the physical
volume on which the data is ultimately stored. This
provides a large amount of transparency in the backup
process but Tributary Systems Storage Director goes
one step further by retaining the native format of the
data. This ensures that if you need to restore data
even if Tributary Systems Storage Director isn’t
available that you can do so without worry or difficulty. |
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| Better Usage of Existing
Tape Hardware |
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| Getting backups done in a System i environment
has historically required one physical tape drive per
server and / or LPAR. While this is what is required
to get backups done, it means that those tape drives
are not being used for a large portion of the day. The
drives are not being used efficiently. A better solution
would be to have fewer drives but to have them being
used more often. This is what Tributary Systems Storage
Director offers. |
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| Tributary Systems Storage Director eliminates
the need for a 1:1 ratio of IBM i systems to physical
tape drives. Instead, multiple servers or LPARs can
be supported with one physical library through the use
of virtual libraries and tape drives. Each server is
presented with its own virtual library and accompanying
tape drives, while in reality, data is written to physical
tapes consolidated into one physical library. Physical
hardware requirements are reduced and usage of those
resources is optimized ensuring you have the most cost
effective solution for your particular business needs. |
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| And, if you want to consolidate your backups
from your Open Systems machines (Windows, Linux, UNIX)
into the single physical tape library being managed
by Tributary Systems Storage Director you can do that
too giving you even greater cost savings opportunities. |
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| Remote Replication of
Data for Disaster Recovery |
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| In a traditional System i environment,
creating and storing duplicate backups means copying
tapes and physically taking them to an off-site vault.
Tributary Systems Storage Director enables virtual tapes
to be copied over the WAN to another set of virtual
tapes presented by another Tributary Systems Storage
Director. One site or the other could also have the
ability to copy the data to physical tape. |
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| Replicating data to an off-site location
strengthens an organization’s disaster recovery
plan. In addition, cost savings are realized as the
dependency on tape storage companies or expensive data
replication software is reduced. |
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| Greater Connectivity
to a Wider Range of Devices |
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| System i users have had only a limited
number of choices for tape libraries and drives. This
has limited IBM i users’ ability to take advantage
of best-of-breed technologies that they may use in their
Open Systems (Windows, Linux, UNIX) environments. Tributary
Systems Storage Director gives System i users a means
of taking advantage of almost any type of storage device
while still presenting a known tape library and drives
to the server - an IBM 3584 with LTO drives. This gives
IBM i users new options and lets them make better choices
about what technologies they use to protect critical
System i data and, at the same time, gain cost efficiencies
by choosing more cost effective storage technologies. |
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| Whether you need to make your backups
complete faster, cut down on the time it takes to administer
your backups or consolidate backups from multiple servers
into a single physical tape library, Tributary Systems
Storage Director can help. Let Tributary Systems Storage
Director streamline, optimize and simplify your System
i backups. |
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