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Newest RSF Release from Bug Busters Increases System Availability, Integrity

High Availability / Disaster Recovery
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With RSF Release 9.0, administrators can change the layout of physical files while in use.

Bug Busters Software Engineering has announced Release 9.0 of its RSF and RSF-HA applications for IBM i. 

RSF provides an advanced managed-file-transfer layer for IBM i. RSF-HA is a complete high availability and data replication solution for the IBM i platform, bringing users more power at less cost than the competition, according to the company. Release 9.0 updates both the base and HA versions of RSF. 

With Release 9.0, you can change the layout of physical files while they're in use! This release also introduces several HA performance and functional improvements.

Change File While Active 

The new Change PF While Active (CHGPFRSF) command lets you change the layout of a physical file with minimal disruption. The file is fully available during the change, except for a few moments at the end when the new format is installed.

Adding a new field or otherwise changing the record layout of a large production file has always been a challenge. Native tools, like the Change Physical File and ALTER TABLE commands, run for a long time and do not allow updates to the file until the operation is complete.

By contrast, the new CHGPFRSF command makes changing the layout of large files practical. During the change, reads, adds, updates and deletes to the file are fully supported, as are operations such as adding, clearing and reorganizing members. CHGPFRSF changes the file format in the background, preserving all user changes made during the update process.

This new feature is available in both the base and HA versions of RSF.

Faster Role Swap

With each release, RSF has improved the speed and efficiency of HA role swaps. A role swap occurs when the backup machine becomes the production machine, either during a test or as a result of a real problem with the primary machine. With this release we introduce the concept of a standby journal. When replicating your system, having a standby journal in place on the target machine can speed up the process of swapping the target into production, should the need arise.  RSF now creates and manages standby journals for you, keeping the receivers small and trim until such time as the machine is swapped into production and the standby journal takes over as the production journal.

HA Improvements

Several key enhancements to high availability processing are provided, including:

  • A new tool to find and delete orphan objects.
  • The ability to specify the default job name for library replication tasks.
  • The ability, when ending replication jobs, to wait until the requested jobs have ended.
  • More flexibility when specifying objects to include or omit from replication.
  • Automatic handling of libraries with cross-dependent logical files.
  • Faster handling of PF triggers and constraints.
  • Automatic target release detection, making it easier than ever to replicate between systems with differing OS release levels.
  • A new, easy way to change the synchronization attributes for all of your defined items at once.
  • A new command that makes it easy to delete a journal and all of its associated pieces.

For more details about these and other enhancements included in RSF 9.0, visit:

http://www.bugbusters.net/rsf_new.htm.

Complete Solution

RSF 9.0 Base Version makes inter-system communication, file transfer and object distribution a snap.

  • Send and retrieve objects and spooled files securely.
  • Send email and text messages from any program or command line.  Attach objects and spooled files to email messages with ease.
  • Pass through to other machines securely and easily.
  • Send objects to many machines in the time it takes to send to just one.
  • Industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption supported.
  • Change the layout of a physical file while it's in use.

RSF-HA 9.0 includes all of the base version function and allows you to replicate everything on your system:

  • Libraries
  • IFS directories
  • User profiles
  • System values
  • Network attributes
  • Authorization lists
  • Configuration information
  • Data queues
  • Object-level authorities
  • Spooled files
  • Message queues
  • Data areas
  • And more...

Two-way mirroring is supported, allowing updates to occur to the same files on multiple systems simultaneously. For more details about features added to each release of RSF, please see: http://www.bugbusters.net/rsf_new.htm.

Competitively Priced

The RSF High Availability feature is licensed separately. This complete solution is available for a fraction of the cost of traditional HA implementations.

Free Trial

Free 30-day trials for RSF 8.6 can be downloaded from www.bugbusters.net.

MC Press Online's staff of reporters and editors are trained professionals who share a background in journalism and have a passion for technology. Many have been in the IBM midrange industry for more than 20 years and have a keen sense of what's important to IBM i and Power Systems users. If you have a news tip, story idea, or press release, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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