Open Systems High-availability Middleware Support

Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi is the only major supplier of enterprise class storage systems with a 100 percent availability guarantee.

•Dual data paths and dual control paths connecting every component

•Mirrored cache for all write data instead of single image cache

•IBM® Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex™ (GDPS™) support

•Hitachi TrueCopy™ software combined with Hitachi ShadowImage™ software for disaster recovery

•NanoCopy™ technology to provide point-in-time copies without requiring quiescence of databases or applications

•High-availability, custom-designed disk drives

•Hi-Track®“call-home” capability to notify the Hitachi Data Systems support center quickly of any incident that may affect availability

Figure 21 highlights some of the many advantages in high-availability design that the Lightning 9900 V Series has over other enterprise storage products.

Figure 21 - The Lightning 9900 V Series offers a far more complete range of availability protection than competitive products.

The recovery process without high-availability middleware involves time-consuming and error-prone manual operations.

Open Systems High-availability Middleware Support

Open-systems server vendors and third-party software vendors, such as VERITAS Software, have developed a class of software known as “high-availability middleware” to help reduce downtime by automatically detecting faults and recovering data services on a redundant set of hardware. Without high-availability middleware, time is lost while a fault goes undetected. Once the fault is detected, a diagnose/repair/replace action must take place before data-service recovery can begin. High-availability middleware can begin an automated recovery process immediately on the redundant hardware. The recovery process without high-availability middleware involves time-consuming and error-prone manual operations, which may include resetting the SCSI bus, restarting drivers, reassigning IP addresses, recovering and restarting applications and transactions, and even rebooting.

4Some competitive products do not have dual cache like the Lightning 9900 V Series systems. If there is an unrecoverable error in cache, there is no duplicate backup copy. With these products there is an increased risk of lost data, especially if the loss occurs in the hardware status area. The Lightning 9900 V Series systems do not have this problem since all status areas and write data are duplexed.