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April 21, 2025	DataKeeper and Baseball: A Strategic Take on Disaster Recovery DataKeeper and Baseball: A Strategic Take on Disaster Recovery Throughout my career, DataKeeper is becoming the industry standard within “think tanks” and “water cooler” chatter, when it comes to Data Protection and Disaster Recovery. How about the great American pastime of baseball and its comparison to DataKeeper? Albeit I’m a huge fan of the sport, as these two things are seemingly unrelated, there are some similarities to be drawn upon. Building a Winning Game Plan for Data Protection First and foremost, both Baseball and DataKeeper require an acute “game plan”. In baseball, teams have practiced and devised a plan to outcompete their opponents in hopes of a victory. Similarly, DataKeeper requires a “thought-provoking” strategy to ensure data protection is leveraged and can be recovered should something catastrophic occur. Secondly, teamwork remains paramount. Infielders, outfielders, managers, and the batboy each have a specific role to ensure the best chance of victory. With DataKeeper, multiple teams may be involved, e.g., Database Administrators, Infrastructure staff, Customer Experience/Support, Management, just to name a few. All should be thoroughly invested in effectively protecting and recovering data. Where Baseball and DataKeeper Differ: The Stakes Are Higher in IT There are some differences that can’t be overlooked. While losing a baseball game, especially if it’s the World Series, Game 7, the last inning, 2 outs, 3 balls – 2 strikes, can be a “bummer”, the stakes are much, much higher with DataKeeper. Losing data can have serious consequences for a business. While baseball players require a unique skill set of athleticism, DataKeeper is a solution that requires knowledge of Enterprise Systems and related processes. In summary, while baseball and DataKeeper may seem totally different, there are some parallels we can draw upon in conclusion. Both require: Strategy Teamwork . . . and Expertise Whether you’re a fan of baseball or an IT professional, it is evident that both require a level of skill and dedication to succeed. What’s Your Data Protection Game Plan? Check out the game plans/solutions that are offered at us.sios.com/solutions/ PLAY BALL . . . *Author: Gregory A. Tucker, Senior Product Support Engineer at SIOS* Reproduced with permission from SIOS
April 15, 2025	Budgeting for SQL Server Downtime Risk Budgeting for SQL Server Downtime Risk In this TechRadar Pro article “Budgeting for SQL Server Downtime Risk,” SIOS’ Dave Bermingham emphasizes the importance of aligning business continuity plans with realistic budgets to mitigate interruptions in mission-critical SQL Server deployments. He advises organizations to assess the significance of each SQL Server instance, understand the potential impacts of downtime—including lost revenue, reduced productivity, data corruption, and legal penalties—and allocate appropriate resources, whether on-premises, cloud, or hybrid, to ensure preparedness for disasters. Reproduced from SIOS
April 10, 2025	Migrating from SIOS DataKeeper for Linux to DRBD Migrating from SIOS DataKeeper for Linux to DRBD SIOS introduced the Distributed Replicated Block Device (DRBD) Recovery Kit in SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux version 9.9.0. Migrating from SIOS DataKeeper for Linux to DRBD is a simple process for those who want to experiment with DRBD features within LifeKeeper as well as for those who were previously more acquainted with DRBD. Understanding DRBD and Its Benefits in LifeKeeper DRBD is a software-based, shared-nothing, replicated storage solution mirroring the content of block devices (hard disks, partitions, logical volumes, etc.) between hosts. The LifeKeeper for Linux DRBD Recovery Kit provides the ability to configure and control DRBD resources for high availabilty. Comparing SIOS DataKeeper for Linux and DRBD SIOS DataKeeper for Linux provides an integrated data mirroring capability for LifeKeeper environments. It’s an alternative for customers who want to build a high availability cluster (using SIOS LifeKeeper) without shared storage or who simply want to replicate business-critical data in real-time between servers. SIOS DataKeeper provides synchronous or asynchronous volume-level mirroring to replicate data from the primary server (mirror source) to one or more backup servers (mirror targets).Steps for creating your PostgreSQL resource are excluded from this blog, but more information on configuring PostgreSQL with SIOS LifeKeeper can be found here. How to Migrate Your PostgreSQL Database to DRBD Stop the PostgreSQL application via the LifeKeeper UI lkcli resource remove –tag pgsql-demo Create a backup of the data for the PostgreSQL database and log files cp -pra /pgsql-demo* /backup/ Create a new DRBD resource with a temporary file system location. lkcli resource create drbd –tag drbd-pgsql-demo –device /dev/mapper/singledrbd-lk1 –fstype ext3 –mount_point /tmp/pgsql-demo Be sure to select the same fstype as the previous DataKeeper for Linux resource. The devices selected should also be sufficient for the amount of data and logs for the PostgreSQL database datasets. Extend the DRBD resource to the target server. lkcli resource extend drbd –tag drbd-pgsql-demo –dest node-a –device /dev/xvdc3 –mode synchronous –laddr 10.15.29.165 –raddr 10.15.27.49 Take the file system resource for the PostgreSQL database out of service. lkcli resource remove –tag /pgsql-demo Change the owner and group for the /tmp/pgsql/demo directories. chown postgres:postgres /tmp/pgsql/demo Copy the data to the DRBD mirrored file system. cp -pra /backup/* /tmp/pgsql-demo Take the newly created DRBD file system resource out of service. lkcli resource remove –tag /tmp/pgsql-demo Break the dependency between the previous file system and the DataKeeper for Linux resource lkcli dependency delete –parent /pgsql-demo –child datarep-pgsql-demo Break the dependency between the file system and the DRBD resource. lkcli dependency delete –parent /tmp/pgsql-demo –child drbd-pgsql-demo Recreate the dependency between the existing /pgsql-demo file system and the drbd resource lkcli dependency create –parent /pgsql-demo –child drbd-pgsql-demo Start the pgsql-demo resource lkcli resource restore –tag pgsql-demo BEGIN restore of “pgsql-demo” on server “node-b” waiting for server to start…. done server started END successful restore of “pgsql-demo” on server “node-b” Connect to the database and verify the database connection. For example: psql -p 3308 -h /pgsql-demo/socket -U psql psql -p <port> -h <socket directory> -U <db user> Remove the temporary DRBD file system resources lkcli resource delete /tmp/pgsql-demo Remove the datarep and temporary file system resources for DataKeeper for Linux. lkcli resource delete –tag datarep-pgsql-demo 15. Verify switchovers and the connection Why Migrate from SIOS DataKeeper for Linux to DRBD? Migrating from SIOS DataKeeper for Linux to DRBD is a simple process for those who want to experiment with DRBD features within LifeKeeper as well as for those who were previously more acquainted with DRBD or want to take advantage of DRBD’s faster async replication speed and a broader array of kernel support. Ready to get started with DRBD? Contact SIOS today to learn how LifeKeeper can help you migrate smoothly and leverage the full potential of DRBD for high availability and disaster recovery Author: Cassius Rhue, VP of Customer Experience at SIOS Technology Corp. Reproduced with permission from SIOS
April 3, 2025	Why is Storageless/Nodeless Quorum Dangerous for Cluster Availability? Why is Storageless/Nodeless Quorum Dangerous for Cluster Availability? Generally, a quorum is defined as a body or group of people who are present to make decisions. In LifeKeeper, Quorum enforces a consensus that uses the status of nodes in a cluster to carry out the next step in handling a node failure within a cluster. LifeKeeper quorum can be operated under three modes; Storage, Majority, and TCP Remote (TCP Remote is only available with LifeKeeper for Linux). Storage Quorum uses a shared storage device to keep track of updates provided by other systems in the cluster, If a system provides no update, Quorum will mark that cluster as failed. Majority Quorum relies on the structure of an odd number of clusters, where one node serves as a witness to determine if one or all nodes in the cluster can’t communicate TCP remote connections through a TCP/IP service on a specified port to verify if nodes in the cluster can communicate with each other. Understanding the Importance of Quorum in Clusters Quorum’s purpose is to maintain the availability of applications by taking remedial actions to navigate unplanned situations. It accomplishes this by lessening the risk of split-brain situations and reducing downtime by maintaining communication between all the nodes in the cluster. The Risks of Operating Without Quorum in Your Cluster There is a risk involved when using a cluster configured without Quorum. The following scenarios will address the effect of not having a quorum and the importance of implementing it. Scenario 1: Reducing downtime Unintentional downtime can happen when one or more systems are not available for use as a result of an unavoidable action, for example, a crash or a temporary failure in network communication. With quorums like storage or TCP remote configured, access to storage devices and or ports can be used to keep track of the status of the communication in the cluster. This additional measure can prevent an unnecessary failover that could cause significant downtime. In other cases, Quorum will take measures to either shut down or reboot the server to restore it to a healthy state and avoid longer downtime. Scenario 2: Split Brain A split-brain is when multiple systems in the cluster believe they are the primary server. This can happen when a primary server loses communication to its secondary server, and the secondary server believes the primary system went down. This leads to two active primary systems in the cluster. If Majority quorum was configured, another system would be provisioned as the witness to serve as a vote for which system should serve as the primary system, preventing the split-brain from happening. Why Proper Quorum Configuration Matters Operating a cluster without storage or majority quorum is dangerous because it increases the risk of experiencing data loss or prolonged downtime as a result of a split-brain and/or a network outage. Using Quroum can provide counteractive measures by making sure the cluster is always healthy and that any unhealthy system is handled appropriately. Contact SIOS today to learn how our high availability solutions can help you configure quorum the right way and keep your clusters protected. Author: Alexus Gore, Customer Experience Software Engineer at SIOS Technology Corp. Reproduced with permission from SIOS
March 26, 2025	SIOS High Availability Software Now Validated for Cimcor’s CimTrak Integrity Suite SIOS High Availability Software Now Validated for Cimcor’s CimTrak Integrity Suite SAN MATEO, Calif., March 04, 2025 — SIOS Technology Corp., a leading provider of application high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) solutions, today announced that SIOS LifeKeeper and SIOS DataKeeper clustering software have been validated for use with Cimcor’s cybersecurity solution, the CimTrak Integrity Suite. This collaboration allows Cimcor customers to seamlessly integrate high availability and disaster recovery into their CimTrak environments, ensuring continuous protection against cyber threats and minimizing downtime in critical cybersecurity operations. SIOS LifeKeeper is a high availability solution that ensures critical applications are always available, automatically detecting failures and initiating failover to standby systems to maintain uninterrupted service. SIOS DataKeeper offers synchronous data replication, ensuring that data is consistently mirrored across multiple servers for fast recovery in case of server failure. Together, these solutions provide comprehensive protection for business-critical applications like CimTrak, helping organizations minimize the risk of downtime and data loss while maintaining secure, highly available systems. CimTrak is the industry’s leading System Integrity Assurance platform that provides real-time monitoring and protection of critical IT assets – from servers and networks to cloud configurations, containers, databases, and industrial control systems. Its patented real-time detection technology lets CimTrak instantly detect and remediate unwanted and unexpected changes across your infrastructure while maintaining system integrity. The platform helps organizations strengthen their security posture, maintain continuous compliance, and protect against external and internal threats through automated workflows and comprehensive change management. “We’re excited to strengthen our partnership with Cimcor and offer SIOS high availability and disaster recovery solutions for their CimTrak customers,” said Masahiro Arai, COO of SIOS Technology. “As cybersecurity becomes even more critical for organizations worldwide, SIOS is committed to helping our joint customers achieve the highest levels of resilience and uptime, ensuring that their security systems remain operational and effective against evolving threats.” “Our collaboration with SIOS brings their proven high availability and disaster recovery solutions to our CimTrak customers,” said Robert E. Johnson, III, President and CEO of Cimcor. “As organizations work to protect increasingly large and complex infrastructures, ensuring cybersecurity resilience is more critical than ever. This partnership provides a seamless and reliable HA/DR solution, helping our joint customers stay secure, operational, and prepared for unexpected disruptions.” About SIOS Technology Corp. SIOS Technology Corp. high availability and disaster recovery solutions ensure availability and eliminate data loss for critical Windows and Linux applications operating across physical, virtual, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. SIOS clustering software is essential for any IT infrastructure with applications requiring a high degree of resiliency, ensuring uptime without sacrificing performance or data – protecting businesses from local failures and regional outages, planned and unplanned. Founded in 1999, SIOS Technology Corp. (https://us.sios.com) is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices worldwide. SIOS, SIOS Technology, SIOS DataKeeper, SIOS LifeKeeper and associated logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of SIOS Technology Corp. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Media Contact: Beth Winkowski Winkowski Public Relations, LLC for SIOS 978-649-7189 bethwinkowski@US.SIOS.com Reproduced with permission from SIOS

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