RAP Version 3.1 is available for download

If you are in the market for an Availability Solution, do yourself a favor and try out this latest version. The product continues to grow adding customer driven features with every new release. This release has many new features which make it more like a High Availability Solution than ever before. Installation can be undertaken by anyone with an understanding of the iSeries Licensed Program commands, configuration takes minutes and you can be up and running in a matter of hours not days.

Simplicity

Customers get sticker shock when they see the cost of a HA solution, its not just the cost of the hardware and software but the cost of installation. The HA providers have gone to extreme lengths to make the product very flexible in how it can be configured. This has resulted in complexity which needs a consultant to understand, having been certified to install the MiMiX product I know just how complex the configuration can be. Yet what most customers end up doing is replicating everything in sight! I am not sure what the current policy is for HA installations, but previously you had to have a certified consultant do the installation with you. iTera came out with a remote installation policy which seemed to be a simpler solution, however it generally meant you had to go to the iTera location and sit with the installation consultants while they configured your system remotely!

RAP has a simple configuration, we only apply what is journalled, profile replication is at the system level and objects are driven by the client on a scheduled basis. This means we only need to know what journal to work with and we even make that easy by exploring your system to find all of the remote journals you have configured. A reasonably skilled iSeries technician should be able to install RAP and have it configured in less than 1 day!

Features

We have been adding new features to the product every release, this is the 4th release and adds new features not found in any of the HA products available today. We have listened to our customers comments about the limitations of the original releases and developed simple yet effective solutions to meet the customers needs. Here are a few of the new features for this release.

  • iASP Support for data segregation
  • Email notification of monitored messages
  • Automated switching to remove complexity and human error
  • Receiver Chain Management to ensure effective DASD management
  • Improved status reporting and startup management
  • Additional auditing and data repair capabilities
  • Improved Source File replication technology (Non journalling)

Apply Technology

The product will continue to be developed using the base technology provided by IBM. When IBM introduced the Remote Journalling Technology it revolutionized the HA market space allowing ISV’s to provide much more effective data transport than anything which had gone before it. Using that same concept we have taken the decision to base the apply process on IBM’s own apply technology which gives us very impressive apply rates that cannot be matched by any other apply technology in use today. If IBM makes any changes to the journal support we have immediate support in the product which will provide our customer base with up to date replication technology without any updates to our apply process management.

Future improvements

RAP will continue to develop using customer experiences and requests as the main input channel for new features and capabilities. Think of it as having your own development shop with the added benefit of having other customer experiences to provide guidance. We are working closely with a number of new customers and prospects and listen to what they need, we even find solutions to their problems using methods which were not originally imagined when we developed the code base. Expect to see a number of new features which will tie up the objects and data to the application in a way which will make recovery much more effective.

Webinar series

If you have been wondering about a solution but don’t have the ability to download and trial the product we are going to be providing a number of webinars where we will demonstrate the product and show how easy it is to install and configure. These webinars will be run on Thursday’s at 2pm EST and require registration to attend. We have provided a registration form on our website with a list of the dates for the webinars, simply fill in the request and we will attempt to fit you into the date requested or send a list of alternatives. Space is limited on these webinars so it is important that you register early.

Chris…

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