Data availability and protection

In a distributed relational database environment, data availability involves not only protecting data on an individual system in the network, but also ensuring that users have access to the data across the network.

The IBM® i operating system provides the following array of functions to ensure that data on systems in a distributed relational database network is available for use:

• Save/restore
• Journal management and access path journaling
• Commitment control
• Auxiliary storage pools
• Checksum protection
• Mirrored protection and the uninterruptible power supply

While the system operator for each system is typically responsible for backup and recovery of that system's data, you should also consider aspects of network redundancy as well as data redundancy. When you are planning your strategy, ensure the optimum availability of data across your network. The more critical certain data is to your enterprise, the more ways you should have to access that data.