Vision Solutions Brings Out Availability and DR Solutions

Vision Solutions, Inc. announced MIMIX Availability for IBM i and Double-Take for AIX.

Both solutions can now be managed and monitored through the Vision Solutions Portal, Vision’s browser-based graphical user interface, which allows at-a-glance monitoring and intuitive control from any device with a browser.

MIMIX Availability 7.1
MIMIX Availability for IBM i provides simplified data availability by replicating business transactions in real-time and maintaining local and/or remote switch-ready recovery system(s). MIMIX Availability 7.1 raises the bar in HAy for IBM i with faster replication and audit speeds, stronger data monitoring and repair, and smarter administration through additional reports and reporting capabilities.

New features within MIMIX 7.1 include:

Increased replication performance – provides all MIMIX customers with increased replication speed, while allowing certain environments to realize outstanding gains.
Prioritized audits – allow administrators to customize the audit frequency for objects based on how often they change, resulting in faster, more efficient audits.
Data monitoring on the target system – monitors the replicated data on the target system to verify that objects remain in sync between scheduled audits. Administrators are notified of unauthorized target data changes in real time with details regarding which user made each change.
Automated repair – intelligent, automated repair of changed target side data is performed based on policy, rather than waiting for the next audit.
Additional analysis and trend reporting – allow analysis of the level of transaction activity in a customer’s business and its impact on their high availability environment.
Streamlined system optimisation – iOptimize analyses, monitors and optimises IBM i systems. Formerly known as MIMIX Director, iOptimize is now a feature of MIMIX Availability and has been enhanced with streamlined system scanning, actionable metrics, localisable health reports, and a list of ease of use features.

In the event of a production system failure, MIMIX Availability 7.1 ensures that businesses are able to continue operation on their recovery systems without data loss and with minimal downtime. In addition to stopping downtime due to unplanned outages, MIMIX is also able to help eliminate interruptions to operations caused by planned maintenance activities such as daily backups (off-line saves from the target), upgrades and housekeeping tasks, thus helping to keep mission critical applications running 24X7.

Double-Take for AIX 4.0
Vision Solutions provides solutions for protecting mission critical data and applications on AIX servers with Double-Take for AIX. Double-Take RecoverNow for AIX is a scalable, business continuity and disaster recovery solution that offers nearly instantaneous recovery of applications and data at the push of a button. Unlike traditional backup solutions, RecoverNow for AIX offers true CDP) to enable data recovery from any point in time, easily and immediately. It a disaster recovery and high availability solution for IBM Power Systems running AIX. Full-featured, with CDP and automated failover, Double-Take Availability provides high availability for physical and virtual AIX environments.

New functionality in the Double-Take
for AIX 4.0 release includes:

Browser-based user interface – Vision’s browser-based Vision Solutions Portal interface now provides at-a-glance monitoring and intuitive control of the replication and CDP functionality in RecoverNow and Availability for AIX.
Improved RPO – RecoverNow and Availability for AIX now meet more RPOs through a new ‘Sync when Ready’ option that allows administrators to configure criteria for more frequent replication during idle periods.
Support for IPv6 – RecoverNow for AIX supports IPv6 for connectivity between production, recovery and replicated servers as well as with the VSP interface, allowing organisations to receive the benefits of IPv6, including additional security features and a large IP address space.
PowerHA Integration Guide – RecoverNow for AIX now comes with an integration guide that describes how to integrate IBM PowerHA for AIX and RecoverNow to provide full featured HA with off-site disaster recovery protection and any point in time recovery with CDP.

Alan Arnold, CTO, Vision Solutions, said: "The combined release of MIMIX Availability 7.1 and Double-Take for AIX 4.0 under the same browser-based interface is an exciting step toward providing a single point of monitoring and control for Vision’s HA/DR solutions across platforms. We look forward to fulfilling this vision across all Vision solutions in Windows, Linux, IBM Power Systems and Cloud Computing environments. We are proud to take High Availability and Disaster Recovery for Power Systems platforms to the next level with these new releases. Each new release of MIMIX Availability sets a new bar for performance, strengthens our customers’ peace of mind that their data is protected, and supplies more administrative power. Double-Take for AIX 4.0 takes a leap in administrative ease with the new VSP interface and strengthens its ability to extend the clustering features of IBM PowerHA with remote DR and CDP capabilities. These two products provide the best solutions for protecting our customers’ critical servers, applications and data against both planned and unplanned downtime as well as protecting their productivity and revenue."

Michael Martin, systems administrator, Alex Lee, Inc., said: "In ten years of using MIMIX, I’ve seen Vision deliver improved replication speed, data synchronisation and backup protection in every release. MIMIX 7.1 builds on the performance increases we received from MIMIX 7 with additional replication and auditing performance gains for our HA environment. Service and support gave me everything I needed. I couldn’t ask for more."

Dennis Schock, senior systems engineer, Healthcare Administrative Partners, said: "Double-Take for AIX 4.0 has some great new features, but the Vision Solutions Portal user interface is the icing on the cake. It’s very intuitive and user friendly. As a relatively small IT team, it can be a challenge to have redundant coverage in all technology areas. I would feel comfortable with other engineers, even junior engineers, filling in for me as the Double-Take for AIX administrator knowing that the VSP gives them the ability to re-configure, check status, make snapshots, and even failover and failback easily."