What is IBM Informix Replication?

Does this sound familiar? Your organization is distributing copies of data by “dumping” and then “reloading” the data on a different site. The data at each site is not timely and the process is manual and time consuming. Perhaps you need a replication system that does more than simply copying a piece of data.
 
The system must also:

• Maintain the integrity of the data at the transaction level
• Deliver data quickly and efficiently across the network
• Allow distributed sites to modify data
• Be easy to monitor and manage
• Transfer data in any direction across heterogeneous data sources

To accomplish this, consider using Informix Replication, a suite of tools that moves and synchronizes data across the enterprise. The Informix suite of tools is designed for flexibility and expandability to fit all business needs.

The suite includes the following tools:

• ER—Enterprise Replication provides replication of data across multiple independent IDS servers, and has the ability to support both “active-passive” and “active-active” replication. Any of the servers participating in the ER cluster can accept both read and write transactions. ER can also be used to replicate individual tables or subsets of tables rather than the entire database. This is different from HDR, since HDR requires an exact replica of the data – including table and database schemas. ER is designed to support multiple servers with complex topologies.
  
• HDR—High Availability Data Replication maintains two identical IDS server instances and employs a log record shipping technique to transfer the logical log records from the primary server to the secondary server. The secondary server is in perpetual roll-forward mode so that data on the secondary server remains current with data on the primary server. The secondary server supports read access to data, allowing database administrators to spread workload among servers.
• MACH 11 - Multi-node Active Cluster for High Availability consists of a single primary server and one or more secondary servers. The secondary servers can include any combination of SDS, RSS, and HDR secondary server, providing increased failover, capacity, flexibility, and scalability.
  
• SDS—Shared Disk Secondary servers provide increased availability and scalability without the need to maintain multiple copies of the database by allowing multiple instances of the IDS server to access the same physical disk as the primary server.
  
• RSS—Remote Standalone Secondary servers extend HDR by allowing multiple copies of the database in both local and geographically remote locations
  
• CLS- Continuous Log Restore is useful when the backup database server is required to be fairly current, but the two systems need to be completely independent of each other for reasons such as security or network availability.  The log files are manually transferred to a backup database server where they are restored.

Informix replication is created and designed to address these challenges:

• Ensuring that data is available or for prompt recovery should disaster strike
• Integrating and synchronizing operations across multiple locations
• Supporting timely and thorough data reporting

Why You Should Consider Informix Replication

• You want to distribute data: Data distribution allows you to make critical data available to local decision makers while maintaining firm central control over the data.  With replication, data can be shared and replicated between databases allowing you to put the data where it's needed.
• You want to augment your backup strategy: In conjunction with your routine backup, replication provides alternative levels of data protection and integrity, while minimizing user disruptions. Replication creates a point-in-time copy of the data to be used as the backup source.
• You want to create a fail-over system: Replication maintains a near real-time “warm standby” database to which applications can switch with virtually no downtime if the primary site fails. You can manage planned downtime like routine maintenance and software upgrades. It protects during unplanned downtime due to machine or network outages. It also provides disaster recovery. Any system providing HA services should provide continuous availability of data in any scenario.
• You want to periodically increase capacity: Through the use of SDS or RSS servers you can distribute the workload.  SDS servers are especially useful  if the amount of data is very large since they share disks.  If you only need to increase capacity for reporting (read only) workloads, then HDR can be used.

What You Can Expect From Xtivia

Xtivia’s certified Informix engineers will provide recommendations and strategies to set up replication to meet your organizational objectives. Xtivia also provides its Virtual-DBA service to monitor your replication activities.

Xtivia delivers:

• Assessments and requirements review
• Replication system design
• Approach and plan details
• Schedule and cost estimates
• Installation
• Testing and validation
• Training to administer replication server
• Replication server monitoring using Virtual-DBA when requested

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