Shield Updates Disaster Recovery Tool for IBM i

July 9, 2013 Alex Woodie

Shield Advanced Solutions has issued a major new release of DR4i, its remote journaling-based disaster recovery tool for IBM i servers. With V8R1, the company has overhauled the code base and added a new apply process that should give users more control and delivered a new PHP-based user interface.

DR4i is a scaled down version of the company’s flagship high availability product, called HA4i. Like HA4i, the DR4i product enables customers to replicate transactions across the network to a secondary IBM i system using IBM‘s remote journaling technology.

The big difference between the products is that DR4i doesn’t provide the failover capabilities to move production workloads to a backup system. DR4i ensures that all of an organization’s data and certain objects will be kept up to date on a secondary IBM i machine. But it’s up to the customer to recover their systems from that point.

With DR4i V8R1, Shield has added to its DR product many of the features that were recently added to HA4i. This includes the new direct apply process (*SAS) and a refurbished PHP-based user interface. This release of DR4i also gets a streamlined installation process.

Shield president Chris Hird explained to IT Jungle the significance of the new apply process back in October 2012, when the company launched HA4i V7R1. By updating objects directly from the remote journal content, Shield gives customers more control over the apply process, better performance, and a way around the limitations imposed by IBM’s APYJRNCHG command, Hird said.

This is particularly important for maintaining accurate replication in complex environments and in shops running i5/OS V5R4, he said. Customers can continue to run the old apply process if they like.

The new PHP interface is also expected to provide dividends to users. “The Web-based interface allows DR4i to be controlled entirely using a secure IBM i sign-on.” Hird says in a press announcement. “The increased functionality and automation has not diminished the product’s reputation for simple installation and configuration, and ease-of-use. DR4i supports the most complex to the simplest application recovery environment with minimal system overhead.”

The new interface also gives the administrator a quick look of the status for the replication processes. The software uses traffic lights as indicators to determine if the processes are running OK. For more information, see the company’s website at www.shieldadvanced.com.