Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Maximum Availability has updated its high-availability software to work in closer harmony with applications that use the OS/400 database. The new support for dynamic database operations in *noMAX Release 8.0, which started shipping last week, should keep data replication running smoothly between two OS/400 servers, even as an application adds, moves, renames, or deletes database files as a normal course of its logic, something that was not as easily handled with previous releases of the software.

Support for dynamic database functions in *noMAX 8.0 should mean less time monitoring the software's data and object replication process, and less manual intervention. Previously, administrators manually added new files into the *noMAX replication process before they would be picked up by the product's remote-journaling-based replication system. Similarly, if an application or a user moved or renamed a database file on the primary system, the administrator might have to manually command the replication, restoration, and resynchronization procedures to get things up to speed again.

With dynamic database support in Release 8, an application can create, rename, move, and delete any logical or physical database file, and *noMAX will automatically pick up the change and include it in its normal replication, even if the associated database file members are assigned to different *noMAX apply groups. The new feature doesn't require complex definitions to set up, the company says, and uses the existing member replication assignments to determine which files are to support the dynamic file operation.

In addition to responding dynamically to an application's database file activities, this new feature brings automation benefits to users who introduce new database files into the *noMAX replication environment. Users can simply create normal types of files on the primary machine, and they're automatically replicated to the backup. Users must still manually assign special files for replication, however. Also, to prevent overloading a server or network, there are restrictions in Release 8 regarding automatically adding database files that are more than 10 MB in size.

Adding support for dynamic database operations was a priority for Maximum Availability's development team, says Simon O'Sullivan, sales director for the New Zealand company. Several users had requested the capability be made available to them, and the new feature was deemed more important than other new features planned for the remote-journaling-based data replication and high availability product, such as support for replication of objects in OS/400's Integrated File Systems (IFS). Originally slated for Release 8, IFS support is in the works and should be delivered with Release 9 later this summer, O'Sullivan says.

Release 8 includes several other minor enhancements, including standard support for replication of OS/400 user profiles, which was delivered earlier this year as a PTF upgrade for *noMAX Release 7. This release also includes improvements in the way the "replication held" status can be corrected, and has several enhancements to the *noMAX GUI. Go to www.maximumavailability.com for a detailed pricing calculator (registration required).

Maximum Availability also reported record sales activity for the first quarter of 2003. During the quarter, the company closed 13 deals, O'Sullivan says, without losing one. O'Sullivan attributes the company's success in closing deals to its sales process. The first step is to perform a live Webex demonstration of the configuration of *noMAX on Maximum Availability's AS/400s, over the Internet, which takes about an hour. The next step is to remotely set up a working copy of *noMAX on the prospect's machines, and to leave it with them for 30 days. Customers don't make any financial commitment to get a trial on their machines, which, O'Sullivan says, is an excellent sales tool.

To date, Maximum Availability has 35 sites in 10 countries running *noMAX in production, with another 70 or so in the pipeline, for a year-over-year growth rate of about 300 percent (the product was introduced in 2001). The United States is the company's biggest market, with just under half its sales and prospects, but its biggest customer is in the United Kingdom, where IBM Global Services uses *noMAX to protect the OS/400 assets of telecom provider NTL.

This article has been corrected since it was first published. A working copy of *noMAX is set up on a prospect's machines for 30 days, not three days, as originally stated. Guild Companies regrets the error. [Correction made 6/18/03.]