- July 8, 2020
The Hidden Costs of Application Unavailability
When a technology application or system goes down, it can be fairly easy to calculate the cost in terms of lost productivity, IT support, and the effects on the bottom line (missed service level agreements). But what about the hidden costs that don’t show up on the balance sheet? Most of us don’t even think […]
Winter weather season is here: is your High Availability / Disaster Recovery (HADR) solution ready?
If you’re not running U2 Replication or RFS, be aware that your systems are not adequately prepared. Last winter, in Pennsylvania, one of our customers knew an intense ice storm was headed directly for them. They attempted to patiently wait it out, hoping the ice would not take down the power lines. But, unfortunately, it […]
Are you thankful for what your disaster recovery solution brings to the table?
Who really wants to be that DBA–sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner with loved ones, wondering if the recovery plan you chose is a complete one? Here’s a brief story about a customer’s technical lead determined not to be that DBA. Just before the start of winter holidays, he decided to put his disaster recovery […]
Is your hardware-only HADR solution coming back to haunt you?
Many of us have had trick-or-treaters come to our door selling a hardware-only HADR solution for our Rocket U2 systems. And as scary as it seems, some of us even bought that hardware-only solution thinking it was going to work. I want to share a story with you of someone who was haunted by this […]
IT jungle: iCluster monitoring and management goes mobile
“IBM i shops that use Rocket Software‘s iCluster can now monitor and manage their high availability setup remotely from the comfort of a smartphone. The new HTML5 interface delivered last week with iCluster version 7.1 TR2 is the first dedicated smartphone interface from Rocket, which plans to add new functions in the months and years […]
Checking group switch readiness using RTVSWCHRDY
The old joke used New Yorkers on tourists who ask “How do I get to Radio City Music Hall?” – to which the response is always “practice, practice, practice”, also applies to high availability. To ensure you have a valid backup system that you can switch to in case of a disaster or for planned […]
Getting some iCluster education
Have you been trained on iCluster? If you have recently been assigned as the primary administrator for iCluster and you or are new to your shop and never trained when the product was installed, you may be wondering how to get up to speed. Reading the Tech Tuesday blogs posts is a good start, but […]
High Availability: do you have peace of mind?
I understand the pressure to never be down. Never lose data. Never miss an order. Never miss your company’s revenue goals. It’s brutal and I will never ever forget it. When I was running a data center, I remember sitting at a football game with my son on a weekend and getting THE CALL. I […]
Subscribing to iCluster Newsletters
On a monthly basis, Rocket sends a customer newsletter to all iCluster customers. This newsletter covers some of the technical tips provided in this blog, but also some additional information, such as the release of new How to Videos on the iCluster website, news of new events, team member profiles, new releases etc. To subscribe […]
Verifying iCluster Communications
When communications go down between systems in your network or a system goes down, the first test when everything is back up again is a simple PING <node name> command. This will tell you that at least TCP/IP is up and running on the node that went down and your current node can find the […]
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