April 26, 2020 |
Toyo Gosei Ltd. Migrates SAP Enterprise System to AzureToyo Gosei Ltd. Migrates SAP Enterprise System to Azure: To Build a “System That Never Stops” With Replication“”We got several proposals for both on-premises and cloud, and decided to migrate to Microsoft Azure with Fujitsu’s proposal of SIOS DataKeeper – that best fits our requirements,” said Akihiko Kobayashi, a System Representative. Toyo Gosei is a long-established chemical manufacturer that has been operating business for 65 years. The company’s main product, photosensitive materials for photoresist, is an indispensable material for manufacturing liquid crystal displays and semiconductor integrated circuits. The company is also focusing on technological development for the most advanced photosensitive materials. In 2007, the company was required to select the successor system of GLOVIA/Process C1, which had been used as a core business system. While receiving proposals from several companies, they chose to introduce “SAP,” an ERP system of German company SAP because of its solid J-SOX support. Time passed and around 2015, the servers installed when introducing SAP had come to the end of maintenance. IT InfrastructureThe company’s IT infrastructure is an on-premises VMware-based data center and a remote data center for business continuity/disaster protection. Since most of their applications run on the Microsoft Windows operating system, they used guest-level Windows Server failover clustering in their VMware environment to provide high availability and disaster protection. The Challenge – Migrating to AzureBehind the migration to cloud, there were needs to be free from on-premises system maintenance, demands for flexibility of scale-up and preparing for disaster based on the experience during the Great East Japan Earthquake. Their decision to go to cloud was driven by the fact that the servers in their premises physically moved during the earthquake and it almost led to a failure. When migrating to Azure, the company built a backup system to address system failures and in case of disasters. “SAP has all the data necessary for our business. If SAP stops, the production process also stops. If the outage continues for two or three days, shipment, payment and billing is also stopped. The SAP system cannot be stopped,” said Kobayashi. The first step was to set up a SAP backup system on Azure to take a daily backup of the production system in the East Japan region of Azure and a weekly backup of the standby system in the West Japan region. Implementation“However, backup is just a backup. Basically we need to make production system redundant in order to prevent it from stopping. On AWS, which was used for information systems, shared disks were available with a redundant configuration. However, Azure does not support shared disks. For this reason, we decided to use DataKeeper of SIOS Technology that enables data replication on Azure,” said Kobayashi. They created a cluster configuration between storage systems connected to the redundant SAP production system and replicate the data using DataKeeper to make it consistent. This provides the same availability as when using shared disks even on Azure where shared disk configuration is not supported. “We have been in stable operations after the initial stage where a failover occurred,” said Kobayashi. “Regarding SIOS DataKeeper, the only thing we have to do is renew the maintenance contract.” The ResultsAs a mid-term plan in the future, they need to prepare for the “SAP 2025 problem” where support for the current SAP version will expire. They have not built a specific plan, but Kobayashi said, “when moving to the new architecture S/4HANA and if clustering is required, we will implement SIOS DataKeeper because we trust it.“ SIOS DataKeeper is a reliable partner for Kobayashi. “Because you cannot stop the production system, it is IT personnel’s responsibility to choose a reliable tool,” he said. Get a Free Trial of SIOS DataKeeper |
April 22, 2020 |
SIOS High Availability Solution And Its BenefitsSIOS High Availability Solution And Its BenefitsWhat SIOS can do for you?With SIOS, get ready to enjoy high availability cluster protection for 70% less than SQL Enterprise Edition, Oracle Enterprise Edition/ RAC. On top of that, save running costs from not having to migrate to a certain vendors’ cloud platform for extended support. Rest assured. SIOS is SAP certified for all major Linux and cloud providers, hence you can easily achieve High Availability and Disaster Recovery on VMware without RDM (shared storage). Thereby, allowing snapshot-based backups to succeed. Best of all, overcome technical limitations of native features from application and database software vendors. No Configuration LimitationsSIOS is a high availability solution that is suitable for use in any Windows/Linus Application on Physical, Virtual, Public/Virtual Cloud. Why Sell SIOS HA SolutionsSIOS has been a high availability solutions leader for 20 years, with its strength as a simple add-on to fit any HA environment. Specifically focusing on channel sales, the great margins translate to cost reduction for customers by more than 60% . You will be provided with sales support and given marketing opportunities. Most of all, you can be guaranteed access to a world-class technical support team. SIOS strives to solve customers’ challenges by providing usable solutions.
Use SIOS Datakeeper with AlwaysOn FCI on SQL standard edition with no need for Enterprise Edition, thereby saving more than 66% of cost. Maintain support even after migrating customers’ old MSSQL 2008 to cloud. SIOS supports multinode cluster (MS limitation), and provides protection for Master System Databases (Master, MSD). Also, it protects other files and applications other than MSSQL
SIOS offers protection for Oracle DB and 75% cost savings with Oracle standard edition. Use SIOS with STD edition and continue to get High Availability even as Oracle ends RAC support for STD edition from v.19c onward. SIOS is less complex than Dataguard and RAC, thereby reducing administrative time and costs. Enjoy the ease and flexibility to run Oracle DB with High Availability on any cloud provider platform. Protect other files and applications not just Oracle DB.
With its easy implementation, application protection wizards, and management via GUI, be sure to save time and cost on your projects. No change from on-premises clustering design and versions used as you migrate to cloud by “life-and-shift”. As a high availability solution, SIOS promises to offer protection that SAP does not cover. Automatic failure detection and failover orchestration for HANA and Central Services with automatic ERS switchover to opposite node (feature not provided by opensource/HAE). Certified by SAP for any cloud provider and and linux flavor. This includes Oracle Linux with SAP in public cloud providers All SAP customers enjoy commercial-grade replication and tech support.
Achieve High Availability, Data Recovery on VMware without RDM (shared storage). This allows for snapshot backups that is not supported with VMware HA. Additionally, you get to enjoy cost savings since there is no need for single-point-of-failure SAN or SAN-to-SAN replication for High Availability, Data Recovery. Similarly, this ends the need for complex vSphere replication for DR of applications like SQL, SAP, Oracle etc. With SIOS, you’ll easily achieve full application monitoring and automated failover. Furthermore, this feature is not provided by VMware HA, only VM and host failures. The solution is specifically designed for HA with full stack monitoring (server, VM, application, network, split-brain). Like a hybrid our high availability solution works on-premises with any VM-to-any Cloud. Download PDF |
April 18, 2020 |
Webinar: Oracle database High Availability In The CloudWebinar: Oracle Database High Availability In The CloudMoving to the cloud does not have to involve disruptive changes to your architecture and application designs. Nor high costs to keep High Availability redundancy and architectural changes to your HA clusters. Even when Oracle removed the RAC feature from Standard Edition from 19c onward, and ends support for 12c, you can still achieve high-availability with 3rd party HA solutions like SIOS. Enjoy savings of up to 70% of costs without upgrading to enterprise edition Oracle DB. In this 1-hour online session, learn how you can achieve the above and more. This includes cost savings when using Oracle and other applications for your organization. All these without compromising your 99.99% uptime requirement in the cloud. Agenda
Live Webinar – Thursday, 23rd April, 2020 Used by some of the most demanding enterprises in APAC including – AGL Australia • Perth Stadium • Dept of Transport and Main Roads Australia • Inghams Group Australia • Chris O’brien Hospital • Korea Education bureau • LG Display Korea • Mitsubishi Heavy Industries • NH Bank Korea • Nagaworld Casinos Cambodia • Nomura Research Institute (Shanghai) • Panasonic Asia • Razer Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd • Samsung Korea • Zespri New Zealand Register Webinar: Oracle database High Availability In The Cloud |
April 7, 2020 |
Managing Alert-Stress for AWS EC2 with SIOS AppKeeperManaging Alert-Stress for AWS EC2 with SIOS AppKeeperHas this ever happened to you? You receive an alert about an application issue when you are out of the office, and you don’t have the information you need to address it? And you either need to access your cloud management console from an inconvenient location or pass the information on to another colleague to address? Or you are investigating an alert when another one comes in requiring your attention? Research has shown it can take the average person 23 minutes to recover from unexpected interruptions. With companies moving to the cloud and having to manage more complex computing environments, this “alert stress” is starting to take a toll on workers’ productivity and mental health. Cloud monitoring solutions are trying to give you more information so you can resolve issues faster, but the depth of information they provide and the volume of alerts can be overwhelming. Is Application Performance Management for AWS Enough?Migrating to an AWS cloud infrastructure means that you often have to adopt new ways of managing and monitoring your applications. You can take advantage of AWS’s native cloud management functionality for your EC2 environment. But many companies quickly outgrow the functionality of these tools and deploy commercial Application Performance Management (APM) solutions for wider coverage and deeper insights. But here’s the thing. These sophisticated APM solutions can be creating more work for you. Yes, they often come with alert notification workflows to put the right information into the right person’s hands quickly. But they do very little to fix the situation without manual intervention. The result: lots of stress-inducing alerts needing your immediate attention. That’s why we created SIOS AppKeeper. It is the industry’s first out-of-the-box solution to automatically respond to service outages on Amazon EC2 instances. AppKeeper allows companies to protect applications from service interruptions and downtime while eliminating the need for costly and time-consuming manual intervention. AppKeeper Automatically Restarts Failed Services in AWS EC2SIOS AppKeeper not only identifies and sends notifications for failures. But it will also automatically attempt to restart failed services or reboot the instance if necessary. Our users have found that AppKeeper automatically addresses almost 85% of the application service failures that occur. Without having to disrupt you, your I.T. or Development team or third-parties. SIOS customers and partners in Japan have been using SIOS AppKeeper since 2017 to protect their AWS environments. ForgeVision is an AWS Advanced Consulting partner, integrates AppKeeper into its cloud management console. It has been allowing it to monitor and recover customers’ failures more cost-effectively. And AppKeeper is allowing Hobby Japan, a publishing company in Tokyo, to create a maintenance-free, low-cost environment. We invite you to learn more about SIOS AppKeeper by watching this short video or by signing up to use AppKeeper for free until June 30th. Then you can see for yourself what it’s like to have systems failures in AWS EC2 automatically addressed. – Daisuke Yoshioka, Manager, Business Development for SIOS AppKeeper.
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March 27, 2020 |
Thoughts on COVID-19 and Assistance for Remote ITThoughts on COVID-19 and Assistance for Remote ITJFK assassination. 9/11. And now COVID-19. Life-changing events that forever stick in our memories, forever change us. Yet when these life situations occur it can bring us together, and make us rethink what really matters; family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and even those we’ve never met, because in each of us there is innate compassion for our fellow human beings. These events show us what we’re made of as individuals, as a nation, and now as a world. As we adapt to life with the current pandemic, for many the new norm is working from home, Zoom meetings, and hoping we’re not off mute when the dog goes berserk because his buddy is walking by and he wants to go out and play. That timing never seems to work out. But we take it in stride, because we’re all in very similar boats, and it is what it is. We’re all trying to make the best of a complex situation. Working From Home Adds Strain to IT TeamsWorking from home not only puts added pressure on those doing it, but it also adds a load of pressure on the systems that are supporting our remote IT operations and, of course, our IT teams. It’s challenging when critical systems are down when everyone is together in the office, but it can be exponentially worse when everyone is working remotely, relying on even those not-so-critical systems to maintain productivity. How SIOS Can HelpTo help companies manage these new remote IT challenges and help keep these systems operational, we are offering the use of SIOS AppKeeper at no cost until June 30, 2020. Please feel free to use AppKeeper to help keep your AWS workloads up and running and, hopefully, alleviate some of your stress and worry during these difficult times. We’ll get through this. We always do. And we’ll do it together. Be safe. Be careful. Be healthy. -Michael Bilancieri SIOS SVP, Products and Marketing Reproduced from SIOS |