This IBM® Redbooks® publication presents an overview of the IBM Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex™ (IBM GDPS®) offerings and the roles they play in delivering a business IT resilience solution.

The book begins with general concepts of business IT resilience and disaster recovery, along with issues related to high application availability, data integrity, and performance. These topics are considered within the framework of government regulation, increasing application and infrastructure complexity, and the competitive and rapidly changing modern business environment.

Next, it describes the GDPS family of offerings with specific reference to how they can help you achieve your defined goals for disaster recovery and high availability. Also covered are the features that simplify and enhance data replication activities, the prerequisites for implementing each offering, and tips for planning for the future and immediate business requirements. Tables provide easy-to-use summaries and comparisons of the offerings, and the additional planning and implementation services available from IBM are explained.

Then, several practical client scenarios and requirements are described, along with the most suitable GDPS solution for each case.

The introductory chapters of this publication are intended for a broad technical audience, including IT System Architects, Availability Managers, Technical IT Managers, Operations Managers, System Programmers, and Disaster Recovery Planners. The subsequent chapters provide more technical details about the GDPS offerings, and each can be read independently for those readers who are interested in specific topics. Therefore, if you do read all the chapters, be aware that some information is intentionally repeated.

This book was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working at the International Technical Support Organization, Poughkeepsie Center.

David Clitherow is a Consulting IT Specialist with IBM Global Technology Services® in the UK. He has over 30 years of experience working directly with IBM customers, focused primarily on the mainframe platform and specializing in high availability. Dave is a member of the GDPS development team, the GDPS Customer Design Council and the Active/Active Sites Design Council.

Sim Schindel is an Executive IT Specialist with over 35 years of experience in IT, working with enterprise clients and systems. Her areas of expertise include IBM Parallel Sysplex and GDPS. Sim is a member of the GDPS development team with primary responsibility for GDPS information development. She is a member of the IBM z® Systems eBusiness Leadership Council and the GDPS Customer Design Council.

John Thompson is a Senior Technical Staff Member with more than 25 years of experience in IBM z/OS® software design and development. He is currently involved in architecture and strategy for IBM z Systems® Business Continuity. John is a member of the IBM System z® eBusiness Leadership Council (zBLC) and serves as a co-leader of the zBLC Business Availability Workgroup. He is also a member of the leadership team for the GDPS Customer Design Council.

Marie-France Narbey is a Certified Project Manager having worked in various areas of IBM System z for the past 16 years. Her System z hardware and large account experience gained through EMEA Product Engineering, Manufacturing support (MOP/DUB), Poughkeepsie Labs, Customer Satisfaction Project Office, pre sales activities and field enablement led her to recently join the GDPS team in the test infrastructure group and as information development team lead.

Thanks to the authors of the previous editions of this book:

Thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project:

George Kozakos
IBM Australia

Thomas Bueche
IBM Germany

Nick Clayton
IBM UK

Stephen Anania
Charlie Burger
Alan McClure
David Petersen
Judy Ruby-Brown
John Sing
IBM USA

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