Flash for i

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The purpose of the Flash for i product is to manage, automate, report, control all the FlashCopy/SnapShot operations on your external Storage reduce the time for backup to a few minutes.

Without disrupting production, Flash for i performs ‘instant copies’ of your IBM i partition to facilitate many operations such as, backup, data extraction, testing environment creation, …

Users and programs can remain active on the production partition while, for instance, a full system backup (SAVE21) is being carried out on the ‘production clone’.

Every Log and Historical data generated on the ‘clone partition’ (DSPLOG, Job log, output files, BRMS history, …) are automatically transferred on the Production partition.

OBJECTIVES
  • Use the FlashCopy function on IBM Storwize, SVC, FlashSystem, DS8000 to create a ‘clone’ of the production partition. Use the SnapShot function on EMC VMAX. Other models and manufacturers to come.
  • No iASP is needed (but iASP are supported). Full system instant-copy.
  • The clone partition can be used for several types of operation such as :
    – Run a SAVE21 every day, without any impact on the production;  Run usual daily backup, with or without BRMS
    – Create in some minutes new partitions for many activities : Testing, Acceptance, Pre-production, Infocenter, Anonymisation, … and before any kind of upgrade.
HOW IT WORKS

All operations are managed from the Production partition, using IBM i commands:

  • Operations on HMC, VIOS or External Storage are automated
  • The FLCLONE command realizes the complete chaining
  • Secure connection between the production partition and other elements
  • The history of the operations carried out on the Clone partition is available on the Production
Benefits
  • Instantaneous and automatic generation of the Clone partition fully driven from an IBM i command
  • It becomes possible to perform a SAVE21 every day.
  • Possible to generate a pre-production partition frequently and automatically with updated production data, while using only 20% of the original disk space.
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