For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

X86 Server Virtualization For High Availability And Disaster Recovery

How x86 Server Virtualization Affects Business Resiliency

by Stephanie Balaouras, Christopher Voce, October 24, 2007

To date, the primary driver behind the adoption of server virtualization has been consolidation. But as enterprises gain experience with the technology, additional uses and benefits are surfacing. According to a recent Forrester study, 49% of enterprises . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Messaging Continuity: Ensuring High Availability For Microsoft Exchange

How IT Professionals Can Apply New Technology To A Traditional Staple

by Christopher Voce, October 9, 2007

A majority of firms now point to email as one of the most critical applications in their business — and Microsoft Exchange is by far the most widely deployed email platform. And it's not just about email any longer; Exchange is the backbone for corporatewide . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Ensuring Continuous Database Availability

High Availability And Disaster Recovery Should Be Part Of DBMS Strategy

by Noel Yuhanna, October 2, 2006

Although database management system (DBMS) and hardware technology has improved during the past decade, it still does not deliver continuous 24x7 availability for enterprise databases. A server can fail, data become corrupted, or a network may go down. . . .

Mean Time Between Failures: The Basics

How To Translate MTBF Figures Into Useful Information

by Galen Schreck, September 28, 2005

Despite its everyday use as an indicator of product reliability, mean time between failures (MTBF) is widely misunderstood. Although hot-swappable hardware and virtualization have made the reliability of individual components less critical, MTBFs still . . .

SunGard Splits, Reaps Market Rewards

by Colin Rankine, October 12, 2004

Last week, SunGard Data Systems announced plans to spin off its availability services (AS) business in the first quarter of 2005. Why? Because as two separate companies, SunGard's $1.2 billion AS and $1.7 billion software and processing businesses will . . .

An Executive Guide To High Availability

by Bob Zimmerman, March 15, 2004

Designing a system to support high-availability applications has evolved from art to science; barring total geographic blackouts, any required level of availability can be designed and implemented, limited only by the time and the cost to develop and . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Failover Clustering Dominates High Availability for DBMSes, RAC Remains Superior

by Noel Yuhanna, December 23, 2003

If a database application requires HA solution, then failover clustering can improve availability, especially for hardware-related outages. Always start with two nodes in a cluster to ensure stability before adding more nodes.

Best Practices on High Availability for DBMSes

by Noel Yuhanna, December 22, 2003

Do not deploy a high-availability (HA) solution for all production databases, as manageability of a clustered environment often tends to be high because of its complexity. Consider only databases that are highly mission-critical, implementing in stages. . . .

High Availability Application Design: Key Strategies

February 18, 2003

Giga offers several core concepts for designing high-availability (HA) applications, even on non-HA infrastructure. IT shops should decide to use these strategies by weighing the extra cost of HA design against the likelihood of reduced downtime.

Production/Recovery Site Separation Practices: Wall Street Case Study

by Colin Rankine, October 24, 2002

As distance between primary and recovery site increases, so does cost. Further, excessive site separation increases the likelihood of data loss and typically degrades the recovery time service levels.

Stratus Technologies May Be Poised for a Resurgence

by Richard Fichera, August 1, 2002

Interested users should evaluate Stratus' ftServer 6500 offering — it is a unique combination of standards-based and proprietary technology for those who need a fault-tolerant server as part of their infrastructure.

Best Practices for Availability Reviews

by Colin Rankine, April 1, 2002

Giga has observed the following "best practices" for conducting high availability reviews.

Determining Availability Requirements: Causes and Corrections

by Brad Day, January 25, 2002

Causes of downtime within a larger computing infrastructure are varied, but building a checklist of all possible causes of downtime (categorized by unplanned and planned) is an effective first step in determining a company s availability requirements.

SLA Benchmark Metrics

by Adria Ferguson, November 29, 2001

Many SLAs will create availability rates for both prime time and nonprime time operations. Most SLAs will also provide time to respond rates and time to resolution rates for various degrees of problems.

Measuring the Continuous Improvement of Infrastructure Management Process

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, November 7, 2001

Availability or other infrastructure performance results are linked to good technology and to the robustness of the different management processes supporting it.

Red Hat 7.2 Aims at High Availability With Ext3

by Stacey Quandt, October 30, 2001

Clients that are current Red Hat users but do not have an immediate need for journaling file system support or clients that may be in the preliminary stages of evaluating Linux may benefit by waiting six months for an advanced server version of Red Hat . . .

Stratus ftServer: W2K Gains a Fault-Tolerant Design Win

by Brad Day, October 26, 2001

The Stratus ftServer line up is the architecture that was entirely developed from the ground-up to focus on one single-minded design objective: to bring fault-tolerant computing affordability to the Windows server computing environment.

Sun Services Offerings Critical to Starcat Success

by Adria Ferguson, September 28, 2001

Although Sun is making strides in its efforts to support a best-of-breed integratable stack, clients must keep in mind that it cannot offer a complete solution and it will not have the capabilities to provide mainframe-compatible availability.

The Future of Comdisco Availability Services: Suitor Sungard Likely to Prevail

by Colin Rankine, August 23, 2001

Customers should expect less aggressive pricing if Sungard acquires Comdisco, since the other tier-one vendor, IBM, tends to compete more on service quality and global reach, rather than on price.

What Is Left of Comdisco?

by Adria Ferguson, July 30, 2001

For clients transitioning from Comdisco to HP availability services, we recommend thoroughly reviewing the existing and potentially modified contracts.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Availability Management: The Evolution of Network Agents

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, July 23, 2001

At some point, frameworks and suites were seen as the greatest solution for the client/server and LAN revolution. They are now fading away in favor of functionally dedicated products, tied together by an EAI solution.

Availability Management: Who Is Watching the Application?

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, June 28, 2001

Giga clients implementing high-availability applications should not only consider hardware and system single points of failure but should also take into consideration the time needed to correct application problems.

Justifying IT Investments: Infrastructure Availability

by Michael Grosvenor, May 15, 2001

In measuring benefits, a causal analysis can illustrate the role of availability in meeting business objectives. The most significant risk in reducing infrastructure availability is that these objectives would be missed.

Downtime Frequency: How Often Is Too Often?

by Adria Ferguson, May 11, 2001

Companies that choose to initiate and maintain effective operational policies and procedures for infrastructure management, planning and testing will continue to experience high system availability rates.

Giga Survey: Application Failures Drive Need for Testing

by Adria Ferguson, April 20, 2001

To maintain a high level of system availability companies should focus on easing the complexity of system and application management by improving testing procedures and automation tools.