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"Compare While Active" Tops List of Latest Features

High Availability / Disaster Recovery
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Bug Busters Software Engineering announced Release 9.2 of their RSF and RSF-HA applications for the IBM i.

 

The base version of RSF provides an advanced Managed File Transfer layer for the 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. Release 9.2 updates both the base and HA versions of RSF.

 

Release 9.2 delivers many new features including the following:

Compare While Active

 

RSF includes several commands that make it easy to compare individual objects, whole libraries and entire IFS directories.  The ability to answer the question, "Is a set of objects on machine A identical to the corresponding objects on machine B?" has many practical uses.  When machine A is being replicated to machine B for high availability, the question takes on even greater importance.

Comparing objects in an active production environment is especially tricky.  Production objects can change constantly, and even when the production machine is replicated to a hot DR backup, it takes a small amount of time for each change to be transmitted to and applied onto the backup machine.  Therefore, to get accurate results in the past, the comparison had to be run at a time when the production environment was quiescent and unchanging.  No more.
 
With this release, we introduce "Compare While Active" (CMPACT).  When running any compare, the user can specify *YES or *NO for CMPACT.  With CMPACT in effect, RSF will accurately compare objects, libraries and directories even when the production environment is constantly changing.  How do we do it?  Just like Save While Active (SAVACT), we use journaling and check-pointing to take a snapshot of each source machine object being examined.  We then compare this to a time-equivalent snapshot of the corresponding object on the target machine.  The result is an accurate comparison, down to the byte level, that can be run unobtrusively, in the background at any time.

 

Advanced Job Scheduling

 

It is now easier than ever to schedule replication jobs to run when you want them to.  A new window parameter allows you to set start and stop times for each task.  Together with the ability to set the task repetition frequency, it's now simple to schedule a replication task to run:

  • At one particular time every day.
  • At a particular time every n days.
  • Every 10 minutes, but only between the times of x and y each day.
  • Any time except between the hours of x and y each day.

 

Information at Your Fingertips


RSF-HA provides lots of feedback to let you know that replication is running smoothly.  The Work With Sync Attributes display gives a great overview of the status of each replication task.  Built-in, customizable RSF system monitors send you email and text messages when anything needs attention. 


Now you can key option 5 beside an entry on the Work With Sync Attributes display to see lots more details about a task, such as journal lag, checkpoint status, journal status, and more.


Automation Makes Your Job Easier


RSF and RSF-HA are built on the philosophy that whatever can be automated should be automated.  This makes life much easier for users.  In the past, however, completely removing a library or directory from replication was a several step process.  In addition to deleting the sync attributes entry, the user had to manually end any active replication jobs for the entry and manually remove any associated replication journals.

RSF now automatically ends any local and remote replication jobs for the entry before deleting it.  And, the new "Delete Related Journals" (DLTJRN) parameter on the Delete Library Sync Attributes (DLTRSFSA) and the Delete IFS Sync Attributes (DLTRSFISA) commands lets you direct RSF to delete the associated local, remote and standby journals before deleting the sync attributes entry itself. 

When deleting a journal, RSF-HA automatically ends journaling for all objects using the journal and removes all associated journal receivers.  Even though the command is run on the production (source) machine, RSF-HA deletes all related journals on both the production and backup (target) machines.  Of course, RSF-HA first checks to be sure that a journal isn't used by other replication entries before allowing it to be deleted.

 

More

 

  • PDF support.
  • Enhanced journal display.
  • Attach stream files to email.
  • More flexibility when capturing journal images.


For details about these and other enhancements included in RSF 9.2, please see:

 

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

   

Complete Solution

 

RSF 9.2 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 9.2 includes all of the base version function and allows you to replicate everything on your system in real time:

  • 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...

 

Full high availability and role swap is supported.

 

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 9.2 can be downloaded from www.bugbusters.net. 

 

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