IBM GDPS V3.6

It was a bit confusing to me : first there was a preview of GDPS V3.6 and only two weeks later there was already the announcement itself : 'IBM GDPS V3.6: Enterprise-wide infrastructure availability and disaster recovery (ZA09-0005)'. This is a very comprehensive matter, so I'll just recapitulate the enhancements you can also find on the IBM GDPS page.

"Improved coordinated disaster recovery across heterogeneous platforms by supporting:

• Distributed Cluster Management (DCM) support for GDPS/GM
  This is designed to allow the management and coordination of planned and unplanned outages across distributed servers for GDPS/GM together with Veritas Cluster Server managed clusters.
• GDPS/PPRC Multiplatform Resiliency for System z (xDR) support for LSS Sharing between z/VM LPARs
  This is designed to support mulitple z/VM LPARs sharing the same disk Logical Subsystem with GDPS/PPRC. It also allows multiple z/VM LPARs to share the same disk using the z/VM Cross System Extension (CSE) function.

Increased availability with:

• Reduced-impact initial copy and resynchronization of Metro Mirror volumes
  This reduces the exposure window where the environment is without Freeze or HyperSwap protection by reducing the need to throttle down the copy process. There is no need to schedule copies to off-shift times to run.
  
• Remote Pair FlashCopy support
  This is designed to provide the capability to allow a FlashCopy relationship where the FlashCopy target device is a Metro Mirror primary device. The value of FlashCopy can now be combined with the value of HyperSwap.
• GDPS/PPRC Timer Support
  This allows the GDPS controlling system (K-sys) to continue processing, even when the server it is running on loses its time source and becomes unsynchronized. The K-sys is will be able to complete any Freeze or HyperSwap processing it may have started instead of being in a disabled WTOR state.
• Two K-Systems support:
  GDPS/PPRC Multiplatform Resiliency for System z (xDR) allows GDPS to manage Linux guests on z/VM and native Linux on System z LPARs with the same quality of service as for z/OS LPARs. This includes support for HyperSwap for Linux data, and the ability of GDPS to manage Linux and z/VM LPARs, and IPL the Linux and z/VM operating systems. Two controlling system (K-sys) LPARs can now be defined, both with awareness of the non-z/OS environment. The two K-sys support removes the various exposures associated with running with a single K-sys and provides the same level of protection for xDR with two K-sys that z/OS enjoys with two K-sys.

Simplified system management with:

• New GDPS Health Checks
  Three new GDPS Health Check are being delivered with GDPS 3.6 can be used to inform customers when their configuration differs from IBM-provided best practice values.
• Query Services
  GDPS V3.6 will introduce a new interface to allow queries on GDPS monitored resources. This is designed to help simplify problem determination."

Not really connected to the announcement, but you might want to check out the FAQ if you have some practical questions concerning GDPS. And I'd also like to remind you I also discussed Basic HyperSwap in our previous System z Newsletter (only Dutch or French).