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 System Requirements 

Database software

Hot standby systems can be set up for MaxDB databases with version 7.5.08 or higher.

Cluster solution

A cluster solution enables you to combine several physical components logically, meaning not on the hardware side. A hot standby system consists of two or more computers in a cluster configuration.

The cluster software must provide a special fail over mechanism that enables the master component to switch roles with a standby component if the system crashes. The cluster software has to monitor the hot standby components constantly to enable this to happen. Since the master component and the standby components within the cluster configuration each have their own internal network address, the cluster software must support IP switching.

Setting up a hot standby system with MaxDB has been tested for the following cluster solution: IBM High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing for AIX clustering software.

Memory management system

The volumes of the master component and of the standby components have to be stored in a memory management system that fulfills the following requirements:

·        The components are both able to access the log area at the same time.

·        There are two different access authorizations for the log area; “read only” and “read and write”.

·        Each data volume has its own physical storage area.

·        The data volumes can be accessed using the same name or you can set up a corresponding symbolic link.

·        You are able to create consistent copies of the data volumes (split.) When a copy is being created, the master component is able to continue to write to its data volume so that the downtime is kept to a minimum. After the split, the data volume for the master component is completely independent of the data volume for the standby components.

·        When standby components are initialized, and in the case of an error, large amounts of data sometimes have to be copied. A memory management system therefore has to be set up so that data can be copied quickly and work can continue.

The following memory storage systems fulfil these requirements and support the set up of a hot standby system with MaxDB: EMC Symmetrix, IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS), IBM TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller (SVC).

 

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