High Availability Archives - Page 46 of 53

SQL Server on Linux High Availability Features and Considerations

August 17, 2018 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

SIOS will be speaking at Microsoft SQLSaturday event

Speaker Jason Aw, Strategic Business Development, SIOS Technology Corp, will be sharing in this one hour session about SQL Server on Linux High Availability Features and Considerations.

With SQL Server on Linux, Microsoft brings SQL Server’s core relational database engine to the growing enterprise Linux ecosystem. High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR) are aspects of SQL Server that are critically important and in this session we discuss the features, limitations and options for High Availability and how SANless clustering can ensure proper functionality, availability and reliability for SQL Server on Linux, on-premise and in the Azure cloud.

Jason is a passionate IT leader with over 20 years of experience in technology, infrastructure, cloud environments particularly with high availability and disaster recovery solutions for different architectures including SQL database applications. For more information on SIOS, please contact here.

Track: Track 3

Level: Intermediate

You Are Invited To Join Us At SQLSaturday

SQLSaturday is a free training event for Microsoft Data Platform professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server, Business Intelligence and Analytics.

This event will be held on Aug 18 2018 at Microsoft Singapore Operations Pte Ltd, #22-01 One Marina Boulevard, Singapore, Singapore, 018989, Singapore

About The Event

Welcome to SQLSaturday

We are proud to host SQLSaturday for the 3rd consecutive year in Singapore. SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server and data professionals who want to learn how to elevate their careers to the next level.

Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorship. Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleagues know about the event.

It is a great opportunity to learn from Microsoft Product Team, Microsoft MVPs, SQL Server authors, and professionals who have been through and can relate to the obstacles you have day to day. This one day training event is unlike any other providing free food, training, networking, and also provide opportunity to win a few prizes!

Date & Time: Saturday, August 18th, 2018 – 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM

Cost: Free

Venue: #21-01 One Marina Boulevard, Singapore – 018989

High Availability Cluster Solution For High Service Level

June 8, 2018 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Improve Ordering Process with High Availability Cluster Solution

The Japan Contact Lens Association has an online ordering system that takes in orders from dealers to manufacturers and agents all year round. SCSK Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as SCSK) manages this system. They added SCSK’s infrastructure cloud service “USiZE Shared Model” with an operating rate of 99.99%. At the same time, they included LifeKeeper to secure a high occupancy rate in the cloud and DataKeeper to build an operational infrastructure with High Availability Cluster Solution. With these softwares, the team could detected abnormalities not only on hardware and virtual machines, and applications. They have set up a system to quickly restore and continue services even in case of a crisis.

Contact Lens Ordering Platform That Provides 24 Hours 365 Days Service To The Cloud

The Japan Contact Lens Association supports the dissemination of contact lenses and the development of the industry. They operate a network system called “CLIOS (Contact Lens Information & Order System)”. “Web-CLIOS” is an ordering system that can easily place orders from web browsers anytime and anywhere.

High Availability Function To Monitor Applications To Minimize Business Impact In Case Of Failure

The USiZE shared model was supposed to be used as a new operational infrastructure of “Web-CLIOS”. It not only provides computing resources, but also provides system operation know-how acquired over 40 years and ITIL. The latter is a best practice in IT service management and a feature that provides high-quality service. However, even this is not perfect. “To realize the service level required by the Japan Contact Lens Association, we needed a mechanism to increase the availability of the application layer,” Mr. Ishihara said. The USiZE shared model is also equipped with high availability function. For example, if a failure occurs in the host server, you can easily move the virtual machine running on it to another healthy host server easily. It can be failed over. However, what can be monitored with the native virtualization infrastructure is only the state of the guest OS. It is impossible to detect failure of the application. Tesio Abe of senior engineer at SCSK cloud service department, explains, “Although the host server and guest OS appear to be operating normally, the application running on it seems to freeze or go down due to some reason. In the case of mission-critical services like “Web-CLIOS”, high availability functions that can monitor applications are essential.”

Short Failover Time With LifeKeeper and DataKeeper

In order to solve this problem, SCSK focused on cloud-ready High Availability Cluster Solution. After comparing and examining products of several vendors, they adopted LifeKeeper. Makoto Nagashima, SCSK Cloud Service Department Foundation Service Manager, said the High Availability Cluster Solution could maintain reliable operation for a long time.

Above all, it is also easy to install. High-speed data mirroring is performed by DataKeeper as a shared storage between the production node and the standby node. Even if abnormality occurs in the production node, LifeKeeper has a mechanism that can fail over in a shorter time which cannot be found with other products.

High Availability Brought About By “Protection Suite” Will Be Their Weapons For the Future

Although more than two years have already passed since the renewal of “Web-CLIOS”, the system infrastructure has continued to operate steadily without causing serious troubles.

SCSK says it will actively utilize “Protection Suite” in other services and projects. Ikeda said, “While high-speed availability of “mission critical “cloud migration is expected to accelerate, LifeKeeper and DataKeeper’s advanced availability for SCSK consulting /SI business and cloud services will become our weapon for the future.”

To find out more about SIOS products, go here
To read about how SIOS helped Japan Contact Lens Association achieve High Availability Cluster Solution, go here

SIOS For U.S. Navy’s High Availability Data Replication Needs

May 26, 2018 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

SIOS Provides GTS with High Availability Data Replication and Business Continuity for U.S. Navy Combat Systems

Global Technical Systems (GTS) had to find a technical solution to meet the U.S. Navy’s high availability data replication needs; one that could keep data synchronized among cabinets and would meet the requirements for the Navy’s mission critical needs. They issued a request for proposal (RFP), which consisted of a need to find an enclosure and Common Processing System (CPS) for the Navy to feed various programs of record, such as the ship self-defense system.

The Solution

SIOS Protection Suite was the optimal solution to provide multi-site cluster configurations and enable cascading of multiple node failovers. They was selected by GTS to monitor and protect the Navy’s IBM BladeCenter BCHT and storage infrastructure against planned and unplanned network downtime. With the ability to combine the robustness of a classic, shared storage cluster with efficient, blocklevel data replication to a disaster recovery site, SIOS Protection Suite also enabled automatic replication redirection to deliver comprehensive disaster recovery protection for the Navy’s combat systems.

In certain configurations, the Navy has two data centers with two servers that provide local availability. Inside the data centers are two node clusters that are connected to shared storage. Both sets of machines exchange data replication on a continuous basis. GTS liked how SIOS Protection Suite combined shared storage support, cascading failover, real-time continuous data protection, and application level monitoring.

Ensuring High Availability Data Replication All The Time

Since these systems run with a rack of servers that will travel out at sea, GTS needs to ensure there is continuous availability in the event that there is combat. With the SIOS failover advantage, the Navy is protected from hardware issues that may surface. SIOS’s solutions allow business data to appear as is, showing no changes in the secondary server. Its application awareness feature has the ability to comprehend the interdependencies that occur between all system components, which greatly differs from competitors whose features are limited to monitoring the hardware, operating system, and database.

Ease Of Installation

There were no integration issues in terms of implementing this solution into the system baseline. GTS took the baseline and loaded the solution into the system. Next, it ran quality control and operational qualification tests then shipped the units to the Navy. The deployment process from start to finish was roughly a yearlong activity for all software and hardware subsystems that, for SIOS products, was both hassle free and easy.

The SIOS Protection Suite allows the end user to choose or use the capability. This means if the user chooses to not deploy the SIOS Protection Suite, they will not receive the added benefit of having SIOS protection. Services are billed on a monthly basis. For this extra fee, customers can receive the added benefit of having a disaster recovery solution that maintains uninterrupted access to data. SIOS takes over the failover of the solution and ensures a resilient environment by monitoring each server.

Benefits

SIOS Protection Suite enables the Navy to meet its mission critical requirements by helping GTS maintain the availability of data. The Navy must be able to meet their mission at hand with high availability. If the enclosure is not able to fail over, they are not able to meet their mission. This solution concisely affords the Navy to meet their mission requirements.

GTS completed an extensive trade study prior to selecting Lifekeeper. SIOS Protection Suite’s price point and its ease of deployment was a key factor in GTS’s decision to select this solution. In addition, the solution’s unique composition provides GTS with the flexibility and savings that are associated with open source platforms.

The robustness of the SIOS Protection Suite provides enterprise class high availability data replication and failover. Protecting critical data is absolutely an imperative necessity for the Navy. The fact that SIOS was chosen for this project speaks volumes, as it ensures systems are 100 percent secure and reliable.

To find out more about SIOS products, go here
To read about how SIOS helped US Navy achieve high availability data replication, go here

Achieve High Availability Data Replication In Cluster Solution With SIOS

May 20, 2018 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

High Availability, Data Replication, Cluster Solution Guards Institution’s Linux-based Resources From Downtime

Serving nearly 19,000 students and supporting nearly 170 academic programs, Boise State University is Idaho’s largest university. The university needed a cluster solution offering high availability data replication. The data protection requirements include maintaining continuous availability of their Linux-based network file system and replication of all data and applications located within its Linux Red Hat server environment. To ensure students, faculty and staff have continuous access to Blackboard resources, Boise State IT staff implemented a SIOS #SANLess cluster using SIOS Protection Suite for Linux solution. This cluster uses local attached storage for each server in the cluster. SIOS software keeps this storage synchronized using real time block-level replication. It eliminates the cost, complexity, and single point of failure risk of traditional shared storage clusters.

The Challenge

The school did not want anyone to lose their data, hence the importance of having high availability data replication. The systems must experience very little downtime, if any. In addition, the university wanted technology that was easy to implement and maintain. And at the same time, provide the highest level of protection and availability of data and applications contained inside the Red Hat servers.

Getting A High Availability Data Replication Cluster Solution

The Boise State University IT department implemented a cluster solution using SIOS software. This cluster maintains high availability for their Blackboard and other critical applications and data by monitoring system and application health, preserving client connectivity and providing uninterrupted data access. If SIOS Protection Suite detects a failure in the application, network, or server hardware, it attempts to restart the application. If the restart fails, it automatically moves operations to backup servers and redundant copies of the data in the Linux cluster through a system failover process. The solution also enables continuous operations during planned downtime for maintenance or upgrades. SIOS software creates a fault resilient environment that meets the University’s stringent high availability requirements. SIOS Protection Suite for Linux works on both physical servers and virtual machines.

Benefits

SIOS software not only provides failover and disaster recovery protection, but it also eliminates the risk associated with a single point of failure contained in shared storage SAN cluster configurations. The SIOS failover process enables automatic system and application recovery if a server goes down.

To find out more about SIOS products, go here
To read about how SIOS helped Boise State University achieve high availability data replication in their cluster solution, go here

Ensure Business Continuity And High Availability With SIOS

May 18, 2018 by Jason Aw Leave a Comment

Alstom Protects Beijing Metro Maintenance System For Business Continuity And High Availability With SIOS Protection Suite

Alstom Transport implemented SIOS software to safeguard maintenance system services for Beijing Metro. They also wanted to a solution that offered business continuity and high availability. They are a global leader in equipment and services for power generation and rail transport. They have selected SIOS to protect data and mission-critical applications used in the maintenance system services for Beijing Metro Line 2.

The Challenge

Alstom integrates the Urbalis™ solution. It is the most advanced signalling system in the world. As the brain and the nervous system of a mass transit network, its function is to control train movement and ensure train safety and optimize traffic operations. All this while providing system maintenance. In addition, its Maintenance Supervision System (MSS) centralizes detection of failures in trackside equipment. The system also provides remote diagnostics to forecast train stopping with swift and efficient replacement of faulty equipment. To manage these sophisticated maintenance systems, the Alstom Transport Urbalis R&D team needed a Linux environment virtual solution to give its client business continuity and high availability. And at the same time, optimizing the cost of ownership throughout the lifetime of the urban transport system.

The Solution

The team conducted extensive and thorough research for the best solution to meet their requirements. Finally, the Alstom IT team selected SIOS Protection Suite for Linux. It is a software application that ensures the continuous availability of applications and data by creating a fault resilient environment for virtual machines. SIOS software monitors applications to ensure that any fault is automatically detected and rectified while maintaining uninterrupted services.

Benefits

SIOS Protection Suite is ideal for any company seeking business continuity and high availability during downtime. It enables continuous operations of the Alstom maintenance system during planned downtime for maintenance or upgrades. This also applies in the event of a system failure or if an application ceases to respond. Alstom determined that it could reach a 99.995% uptime rate for their business critical applications. If the first server goes down due to an electrical outage or to unavailability of a network connection, data will be protected while applications failover to the second server. This failover capability provides a service window for maintenance to be conducted on the first server while the second server continues to operate. This means Alstom can plan for a maximum downtime of only two minutes (the time it takes to complete a failover). The SIOS solution also enables fault diagnostics to be sent remotely to operators. Therefore, it is no longer necessary for the Alstom team to ask operators to proactively check each deployed server individually.

To find out how SIOS products, go here
To read about how you can also achieve business continuity and high availability, go here