Re: Thoughts on this design for two Power servers across two data centers

I would add IBM PowerHA to manage the mirroring parts of the SANs. If you use the mirroring 'bare' then you're replicating the entire partition and as such if you need to flip to the backup you guarantee an abnormal IPL. You also lose the ability to do maintenance activities on one system (Upgrades, full saves, PTFs) while you're running on the other system.

One other comment. With VTL do you still need LTO? Each DSI unit can replicate to the other so you get offsite backups that way.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

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On 12/11/2019 4:33 PM, Laurence Chiu wrote:

Looking to deploy new Power servers across two data centers to support
application that is low volume but mission critical and high financial
value.

I am using the following design guidelines.

1. Both servers use SAN no disks. Total 5TB max
2. Data is encrypted at rest
3. Data is replicated in real time across the two sites
4. Backup to VTL
5. Off-site backups to LTO tape

So the kit would be

1. Two Power 9 servers 16GB FC
2. HMC
3. IBM Storwize V5000 using its encryption and mirroring software
5. DSI IDSI520-D04 VTL
6. LTO7

This is for an Enterprise that already has mainframes and DS8K SANs with
SKLM supporting encryption so it's not over cooking it

Thanks