High availability in InfoSphere Information Server

InfoSphere® Information Server includes features that increase the availability of the system.

A highly available system maximizes the percentage of time that the system services are operational from the user point of view. To heighten availability, you implement topologies and technologies that introduce redundancy. The aim is to reduce or eliminate the number of single points of failure (SPOF): elements that, if they fail, cause critical aspects of the system to stop operating.

IBM® provides different high-availability solutions for each InfoSphere Information Server tier. This arrangement optimizes the best available options for each major component in your installation. Each solution helps you to design different highly available configurations, from relatively simple setups to complex installations. Most solutions involve clustering of hardware and software components to provide redundancy.

In general, the higher the level of overall availability that you want to achieve, the more complex the system you must design and maintain. Also, more highly available systems generally require more hardware. For these reasons, consider the level of availability that you require within each software tier in the system. You might want a different level of availability within your development system than you have within your production system.

For more information about designing a topology for InfoSphere Information Server, see the Designing a topology for InfoSphere Information Server white paper.