Bug Busters Debuts $1,300 OS/400 Mirroring Solution

Updated: January 4, 2007

by Alex Woodie

OS/400 shops looking for a simple and inexpensive mirroring solution may want to check out the new release of Remote Software Facility from Bug Busters Software Engineering. With RSF version 7.3, the Seattle company has added a way to manage the synchronization of object and IFS files, which transforms a tool traditionally used for propagating program changes across a network of OS/400 servers into a tool for disaster recovery and higher availability.

Up to this point, Bug Buster's RSF tool has functioned as part of the application lifecycle management strategies of thousands of OS/400 shops. The tool's main draw has been its capability to keep the development and production libraries of dozens of OS/400 servers synchronized, no matter which way they're connected to the network. This flexibility of communication has attracted OEM partnerships with ISVs such as JDA Software Group, Aldon, LANSA, and others looking for a way to push new updates to a large and varied customer base. About 10,000 OS/400 servers around the world are running RSF right now, according to Bug Busters.

Over the years, Bug Busters' customers have expressed their desire for a cost-effective solution for propagating objects and IFS files, says Bug Busters CEO Bruce Lesnick. "They want a simple way to say 'I want these three libraries to be the same on this machine as on that machine and I don't want to think about it,'" he says. "We could always replicate libraries and IFS files. What we've added is the ability to manage this synchronization. You tell the tool, here's a list of libraries on machine A that I want mirrored on machine B. You give it a schedule, say to replicate every hour, and RSF will do that automatically."

With that, Bug Busters has the beginnings of a high availability solution. At this point, it would not be accurate to put RSF 7.3 into the same class as the high availability solutions that have been established on the market for years. The new release does contain features for reducing downtime in the event of a disaster. But it lacks many of the features normally associated with high availability solutions, including record-level replication, failover capabilities, and support for OS/400 objects such as user profiles.

With that said, RSF 7.3 may be a good fit for OS/400 shops who find the established HA solutions are too expensive or too complex. For about $1,200--the cost of two RSF licenses and a year's worth of maintenance--an organization can purchase a product that mirrors OS/400 objects and IFS files from one iSeries to another, and includes facilities for keeping those objects and files current as they're changed and updated through the course of business.

As opposed to traditional HA systems, which replicate objects and database files at the record level, RSF synchronizes systems at the object level. This less-granular approach may not be ideal for a larger organization that needs to pick and choose exactly which parts of their systems to replicate, or for those customers that are replicating very large objects. But object-level replication may be just what the doctor ordered at smaller OS/400 shops that don't want or need to deal with the added complexity, or for large shops that aren't seeking a full-blown solution, Lesnick says.

RSF 7.3 enables a user to specify which libraries and directories to mirror, which objects to omit, how often to synchronize, and which systems to target with the replication, the company says. While Bug Busters has added a GUI to RSF in recent releases, the replication control facilities are strictly green screen for the moment.

RSF can keep two OS/400 systems synchronized using practically any communication method, which means machines can be connected via dial-up, LAN, SDLC, TCP/IP, or even using the Internet. "RSF started out, and is still, a communication tool," Lesnick says. "We're able to build on RSF's communication foundation to make the mirroring information available to other machines that may be connected in all kinds of different ways."

For most OS/400 shops, the capability to keep production and test libraries synchronized across multiple machines solves the bulk of their DR problems, Lesnick says. "That's the main issue for a lot of people. Failover isn't automatic [with RSF]. But it's a whole lot easier because you can rely on your data being there," he says. "As opposed to using tapes or manual system where you're going to try to periodically update a secondary machine, this is far more reliably robust and easier to use."

RSF's mirroring features will be enhanced, Lesnick says. "We're going to be watching and listening to customers as we work on how to implement a record-level replication solution," he says. Support for record-level replication will let customers fine tune their replication environment for better performance, particularly at OS/400 shops using objects with millions of records in them. Even support for OS/400 clustering--one of the core requirements to be considered for IBM's high availability business partner program--is a possibility for future releases, he says.

RSF 7.3 features other improvements not related to its new disaster recovery capability, including a new "super-compressed" save image command that sends only the difference between two saved images for distribution to remote systems. Bug Busters says this new feature, which supports both traditional save files and new virtual tape save images, can reduce the size of the original save image by up to 70 percent.

Another new feature in RSF 7.3 makes it easier to concurrently send different sets of objects to a list of machines. The RSF requester directory has also been enhanced to support checking by system name as well as serial number.

RSF 7.3 is available now. Licenses cost $575 per OS/400 server, which includes 90 days of maintenance. The annual maintenance fee is $86 per machine. For more information visit www.bugbusters.net