April 15, 2023 |
We Built HANA Multitarget to be a Game-changerWe Built HANA Multitarget to be a Game-changerOn behalf of the SIOS engineering team that created the new HANA Multitarget feature in SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux v. 9.7.0, we are proud and excited of our accomplishment. It took an experienced team of software developers months of planning before we even started the implementation. We worked through a number of customer use cases, technical requirements, and an impossible list of interdependencies to create a feature that is both unique and powerful. An Engineer’s Perspective on the HANA Multitarget FeatureHANA clustering environments are intrinsically complicated. That’s why customers who want to add a third node to their HANA cluster using competing clustering software have to use some pretty complex scripting and continue to script any changes to the cluster in the event of a failover or failback. With these products, after a failover occurs you have to do a lot of manual verification steps to be sure it’s ok to perform a takeover. Unlike those products, LifeKeeper 9.7.0 accesses detailed information about all the HANA nodes in your cluster that make it a much more stable and reliable HA environment. For example, it can determine which nodes are available and capable of a takeover and can also see if there was data loss after the failover occurred. This is very important, especially if multiple nodes have failed. The complexity of managing both failover and replication reliably in a multinode environment increases exponentially with every added node. For example, how will the clustering software choose which node to failover to? With data stored in three nearly identical locations, which storage is most current and accurate? How do you guard against a “split brain” scenario where data on different nodes diverge? What should the failover and replication steps be if two nodes fail? Three? We faced the challenge of thinking through the various combinations of failure scenarios and ensuring that SIOS maintained data protection and a reliably failover in each of them. LifeKeeper monitors the environment at a deeper level than competing products and has stringent requirements for managing failovers. The new 9.7.0 version of LifeKeeper has an enhanced ability to keep track of the HSR hierarchy, and to manage failovers of complex three and four-node HSR clusters to ensure they are fast and highly reliable. We set out to create the most automated and reliable multitarget clustering environment for HANA in the industry and I believe we succeeded. Why HANA Multitaget Provides the Most Reliable Clustering Environment
We believe the new LifeKeeper HANA Multitarget is a game-changer that gives customers the most automated, reliable failover clustering solution in the industry. Watch a demo of the new feature to see its capabilities. Contact SIOS today for more information on the HANA Multitarget feature for LifeKeeper. Reproduced with permission from SIOS |
April 12, 2023 |
The Essential Need for Always-On ApplicationsThe Essential Need for Always-On ApplicationsFrom Mission-Critical to Everyday OperationsIn today’s “always-on” world, technology plays a vital role in organizations’ efficiency and competitiveness. Some applications are classified as “mission critical,” signifying their essentiality to an organization’s core operations. These applications require high reliability and availability since any downtime or malfunction can have significant consequences. Additionally, everyday applications used in day-to-day business operations are critical to an organization’s success. Therefore, guaranteeing the high availability and reliability of all critical applications is crucial. In this blog, we will delve into why always-on applications are fundamental in today’s fast-paced and competitive business landscape. Additionally, we will explore what organizations can do to ensure their applications are highly available and reliable. Customers and Employees Expect 24/7 Application AvailabilityFirst and foremost, customers and employees expect applications to be available 24/7, from any device and any location. In today’s digital age, application downtime or slow performance can lead to lost revenue, damage to reputation, and even the loss of customers. For example, consider an e-commerce website that experiences downtime during a critical sales period. Customers may become frustrated and abandon their shopping carts, resulting in lost revenue and potentially damaging the company’s reputation. Similarly, if an employee cannot access an essential application, they may not be able to complete their work, leading to lost productivity and potentially impacting the overall success of the organization. Furthermore, as more organizations move their operations to the cloud, ensuring the availability and reliability of applications has become even more critical. In a cloud environment, complex systems, such as ERPs, may be running across multiple servers, data centers, and even geographic regions. This complexity can make it more challenging to identify and address issues quickly, making it essential for organizations to have robust monitoring and alerting systems in place to ensure they can respond promptly to any problems that arise. How Organizations Can Ensure Applications Are Always-OnSo, what can organizations do to ensure their applications are always-on? One approach is to implement a robust disaster recovery plan that includes redundant systems and failover mechanisms. This approach can help ensure that if one component fails, another can take over seamlessly without causing downtime or disruption. Organizations must also invest in the necessary infrastructure and tools to monitor their applications continuously and proactively address any issues before they become critical. Additionally, organizations can leverage technologies such as automation to improve the availability and reliability of their applications. For example, automating routine tasks can help reduce the risk of human error, and address issues quickly before they become critical. Whether they’re mission-critical or not, it’s vital to ensure that applications are available and reliable to maintain productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Organizations need to invest in the necessary infrastructure, tools, and processes to guarantee that their applications are highly available and reliable. They should also be ready to act quickly in response to any issues that may arise. Ultimately, an always-on approach to applications is a key factor for organizations to succeed in today’s fast-paced and highly competitive business environment. Reproduced with permission from SIOS |
April 6, 2023 |
Webinar: High Availability for Financial ServicesWebinar: High Availability for Financial ServicesRegister for the On-Demand WebinarMinutes or even seconds of downtime can be critical for businesses providing financial services and 24-hour transactions. Watch this webinar to learn cost-efficient best practices to ensure your transactional, processing and administrative financial systems in Windows or Linux environments will be protected and will continue to operate through hardware failures, administrator errors, routine maintenance and site-wide disasters. Reproduced with permission from SIOS |
April 2, 2023 |
Webinar: Availability Options for SQL Server in AWSWebinar: Availability Options for SQL Server in AWSRegister for the On-Demand WebinarYou can successfully deploy and run SQL Server workloads in AWS without stress by having a well-planned data strategy. In this webinar, presented by Microsoft MVP Dave Bermingham, you will learn about availability options on AWS, effective ways to optimize cloud storage and cost, using the cloud for disaster recovery, and key considerations for choosing the right availability options and requirements for your SQL Server – all to help you define and plan your best data strategy. Register SIOS
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March 29, 2023 |
The Industry’s Most Comprehensive Disaster Recovery for SAP HANA DatabasesThe Industry’s Most Comprehensive Disaster Recovery for SAP HANA DatabasesIf you’ve got SAP HANA databases, you know how essential it is to protect them from any downtime or disasters. Unfortunately, providing high availability clustering and disaster recovery protection for HANA databases can be a real headache. Configuring HA/DR with many clustering solutions is often a time-consuming and intricate process that involves lots of complicated scripting – while simultaneously addressing the source of the failure. And when things get that complex, it’s easy for errors to creep in, leading to unreliable failover and extended downtime. But don’t worry – in this blog, we’ll take a look at how the multi-target feature in the new V9.7.0 of SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux can make your life a lot easier by automating the failover and orchestrating the DR replication ensuring your HANA databases are always protected from local, site-wide and regional disasters. Read what analysts have to say about V9.7.0 of SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux. Automated HA/DR for up to four cluster nodesThe new HANA Multitarget feature enables you to deploy a high availability environment where HANA operates on a primary node and can failover to up to three secondary nodes located in different cloud Availability Zones or on-premises disaster recovery locations. SIOS LifeKeeper is an advanced clustering software that monitors the health of the entire IT stack – including network, storage, operating system, application, and hardware – and communicates with all associated cluster nodes. It also supports synchronous or asynchronous block-level replication of primary node storage to two or three secondary DR nodes using HANA System Replication (HSR). If it detects an issue with application or database availability, it automatically moves operation to a secondary node in the cluster and ensures that node now replicates to the DR node(s) – maintaining DR protection and eliminating the need for error-prone scripting. In normal operating conditions, the application (1) is running on primary node A located in Datacenter 1, Region 1. HSR is used to replicate storage from Node A to secondary nodes B and C (2). If SIOS LifeKeeper detects an application availability issue on Node A, it automatically orchestrates an application failover to Node B (3) and switches DR replication from Node B to Node C (4). When normal operation is restored to Node A, LifeKeeper automatically restores original replication settings with a single click. SIOS LifeKeeper for LinuxSIOS LifeKeeper for Linux version 9.7.0 delivers the most comprehensive high availability protection from local, site-wide, and regional disasters. It ensures that your essential HANA database resumes operations quickly and reliably, so you can be confident that your mission-critical workload is protected. In addition, to HANA Multitarget feature, SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux version 9.7 offers other new features and capabilities such as added support for WebSphere MQ v9.3, RHEL v9.0, SAP HANA on RHEL 8.6 and SLES 15 SP4, and SAP HANA on S/4HANA 2022. How SIOS Can HelpIf you are interested in purchasing SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux version 9.7, contact SIOS for more information or call toll-free (US) 866.318.0108 or international: +1.617.245.6955. Protect your business operations with SIOS LifeKeeper for Linux version 9.7 and gain the peace of mind of knowing that your HANA database is always available. Reproduced with permission from SIOS |