IBM introduces ‘world's fastest global business continuity technology’

Global Mirror for Enterprise Storage will help make ultra high speed global disaster recovery networks a reality.

IBM is claiming to have made a breakthrough in storage technology that will help clients protect and recover their critical data at global backup locations faster than ever before. Called IBM Global Mirror for Enterprise Storage, the technology provides global backup and recovery protection at speeds previously only possible at local distances.

"In the context of IT outages - planned or unplanned - every second is of critical importance,” said Tom Hawk, general manager of Enterprise Storage, IBM. "The value of lost - or saved - data is virtually incalculable. Global Mirror is designed to help customers maintain high availability among business processes and key business applications in a cost-conscious manner - across the globe and at some of the fastest speeds available today."

Global Mirror uses breakthrough innovations within asynchronous PPRC (peer-to-peer remote copy) technology to help speed disk mirroring at distances greater than 300 kilometres with a latency period that can be as low as three to five seconds.

The solution is also designed to allow massive data transfers while avoiding disruption to IT performance or availability. Global Mirror for ESS requires only two fibre channel links per storage system - this performance can help reduce infrastructure costs and lower TCO.

IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services will be incorporating this new technology as part of its rapid recovery portfolio.

IBM TotalStorage Resiliency Family
Global Mirror is a key element of the newly announced TotalStorage Resiliency Family - a set of disaster recovery and business continuity offerings from IBM based on integrated server and application solutions. According to IBM it is one of the most comprehensive sets of business continuity features available in the marketplace, and includes integrated and automated solutions designed to provide capabilities ranging from basic backup and restore, to multi-site ‘real-time’ disaster recovery for clients - helping businesses better align IT costs according to the value of various forms of information.

The Resiliency Family includes IBM FlashCopy for real-time copying during data replication, and synchronous PPRC and GDPS (Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex), designed to provide automated critical data mirroring and efficient workload balancing at multiple client sites. Clients will also have the option to include global distance disaster recovery for SAP and Automated System Cloning for SAP.

IBM TotalStorage Global Mirror for ESS will be available worldwide for both IBM
eServer zSeries systems and open systems in May 2004.

Main IBM website
IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services UK
IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services US

•Date: 20th April 2004 •Region: US/UK/World •Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
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