AIMstor Realtime Replication
Real-Time Replication for DR
AIMstor includes Real-Time Replication for Windows file and application servers like SQL and Exchange, providing you with continuous replication to a local or remote "live file system" for standby fail-over disaster recovery.
With Replication, you can implement a single, truly unified solution, mixing other tools such as Backup and CDP within the same policy instance.
The flexibility of AIMstor Replication provides for a Disaster Recovery capability that is resource distributed, fully automated, real time policy aware, and yet centrally managed and controlled. AIMstor can support anything from simple, to the most complex of Replication environments.
- I need to aggregate multiple systems
- AIMstor Replication can easily be setup for Disaster Recovery Data Aggregation - replicate several systems to one system for centralized high availability.
- I need to ensure all data is in sync
- AIMstor gives you "True Active Sync", which provides flexible synchronization to establish the initial point of consistency between source and destination, even when the applications are up and in use.
- Not all my data needs to be replicated
- Replicating "everything" might not be a good strategy. Some data that changes regularly is simply not useful. AIMstor Realtime File Replication provides the ability to selectively exclude certain data sets from being replicated thereby avoiding unwanted data being replicated and stored. You can finally eliminate noisy "temp" directories, data and applications that offer no value to system restore needs. You can't do this with volume replication products.
- I need more than just Replication
- AIMstor delivers Backup / Archiving / Replication / Continuous Data Protection / Deduplication and Data Tracking in a single package with a single footprint. Operations can be mixed without generating unnecessary data duplication or redundant data traffic.
Configuration of AIMstor Replication takes seconds, and can be easily mixed together with other Operations, such as Backup, CDP, Bare Metal Restore, Versioning for Archive, Tracking for Compliance and Information Security requirements, and more. The result is an unmatched ability to create and implement comprehensive, closed-loop, end-to-end policies in minutes.
Key Features
- Feature
- Benefit
- Bandwidth Throttling
- Enables you to control the amount of bandwidth that the replication product uses.
- Reduced Network Usage
- Allows the line to be used simultaneously with other applications that may exist in the environment. Variable throttling is also supported.
- Schedule Based Throttling
- Allows users to increase bandwidth at off hours.
- Changed Byte Awareness
- Compared to volume replication solutions, which replicate complete volume blocks, AIMstor Realtime File Replication only replicates the changed bytes. If only 10 bytes are written to a file, only those 10 bytes are replicated, not an entire 1k-4k volume block.
- Synchronous Replication
- Transactions are written to the disk and simultaneously written to the destination machine. When the destination machine receives the transaction, the transaction is acknowledged and completed. This is ideal for very high availability applications, where a high bandwidth, low-latency network connection is available.
- Asynchronous Replication
- Transactions are written to disk and sent to the destination machine. Asynchronous is optimal for connections with sporadic efficiency. Transactions are held in memory only before being sent on the network.
- Asynchronous Journaled
- Transactions are written to disk and also put on a journal log file to protect against lost data in the event of system failure. Transactions from the log file are then sent to the destination machine.
- Tolerant Cache
- If the amount of data that needs to be replicated continuously outstrips available bandwidth, data is kept on the source until band width increases for off-load.
- Network Compression
- A selectable and tunable feature, forces compression of data sent across the network, decreasing network usage.
- Express Setup Wizard
- Simple replication setups can be created through the use of a setup wizard.
- Folder to Folder Mirror
- A new option allows you to easily setup a fast drive or folder mirror between 2 machines or VMs. Start Flow, Pause Flow, Reverse Flow, and implement Bi-Directional Flow are simple point/click selections.
Live Monitoring
Replication activity can be monitored using the live monitoring facility. Various meters and status icons show the following:
- Feature
- Benefit
- Network outgoing queue
- How full is the network outgoing queue.
- Network incoming queue
- How much received data is still waiting to be processed.
- Network percentage utilization
- How much of the network is currently being utilized.
- Sync in progress
- Indicates that source and destination machines are synchronizing data.
- Sync required
- Indicates that source and destination machines are out of sync and require a resynchronization.
Unified Information Architecture
- Feature
- Benefit
- Single Software Licenses
- All AIMstor components, such as Replicate, are licensed within the general framework of AIMstor, so that you may benefit from the centralized elements of Unified Information Management.
- Common Code Base Library
- All AIMstor components (Live Backup, CDP, Track, etc.) utilize the exact same code base for all their processes.
- Unified Solution
- AIMstor is a transformational software solution that offers a large array of common code based Operations, with multiple product sets emanating from each.
Replication Topologies
- Feature
- Benefit
- One-to-One
- One machine to another machine.
- Many-to-One
- Many machines to one machine.
- One-to-Many
- One machine to many machines.
- Symmetrical Two-way Mirroring
- Replicate directories between two machines, allowing either to master the data. Uses include simple WAN file system, and as a failover system when either machine may become the master.
- Many-to-Many
- A combination of the above topologies used together, typically with groups of systems.
True Active Synchronization
- Feature
- Benefit
- On Demand Synchronization
- Provides flexible synchronization to establish the initial point of consistency between source and destination. Can be done at the initial setup when both source and destination are synchronized, or when desired for subsequent resynchronization.
- Active System Synchronization
- Allows synching even when the applications are up and in use.
- Granular File I/O Replication
- Highly granular replication system allows you to tightly define the type of data that is replicated through the policy classification. Unlike volume replication systems which replicate all contents on the volume, you can be more specific with what you replicate thereby saving bandwidth and storage space.
Replication Screenshots and Supported Topologies
Topology is inherently flexible. AIMstor is engineered to connect to AIMstor nodes in virtually any manner. This capability can help you meet needs in ways never before offered in the market.
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- The Replication Operation can be combined with other AIMstor Operations, such as CDP or Backup, to create one single policy for many types of Data Protection. Fine tuning items such as Bandwidth throttling, transfer mode and other parameters is easily done within the Workflow User Interface.
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- Many to One: Replicate 2 or more AIMstor nodes to an AIMstor Replication node.
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- Replication Forwarding: Replicate an AIMstor node to an AIMstor Replication node, and continue to another AIMstor Replication node at another alternative site.
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- One to One: Replicate an AIMstor node to another AIMstor Replication node.
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- One to Many: Replicate an AIMstor node to Many AIMstor Replication nodes.
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- Symmetric Replication: Replicate 2 AIMstor nodes to each other in real time for Symmetric Replication.
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- Group to Repository: Replicate a Group of AIMstor nodes to an AIMstor Repository.
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- Complex Supported Topology: As long as the connection is there, Replication to many other systems, through Replication nodes and Repositories, can be easily achieved.
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