Maxava, a global leader in IBM i high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) software for both on-premise and cloud environments, reports an increasing number of its customers are making use of Simulated Role Swap (SRS) as a critical part of their disaster recovery preparedness efforts.

SRS is a key feature of Maxava HA Enterprise+ that allows the user to temporarily turn a backup system into a simulated primary system for testing, whilst the primary system remains live and unaffected.

As increasing numbers of companies are required to test and validate disaster preparedness, but with rapidly declining windows in which to do so, features such as SRS are a critical component of an IT teams’ ability to demonstrate compliance against corporate requirements.

Maxava customer Florida East Coast Railway is a shining example of how SRS has helped the company ensure it is prepared to weather any disruption to its extensive logistics systems by testing their approach with the use of SRS, a standard feature of their Maxava HA Enterprise+ solution.

“Maxava HA Simulated Role Swap (SRS) proved immensely useful in our upgrade from IBM i V5R4 to V7R1. We would go into SRS mode on our new V7R1 platform for extended and unabridged application testing, and then out of SRS mode to allow the V7R1 platform to re-sync with our V5R4 production. We would then remedy any application issues found during the last cycle of SRS testing on V7R1, in preparation for the next SRS test cycle. Maxava HA SRS allows for a very controlled, methodical, and measured approach to OS upgrades, and going forward it will allow us to perform end-to-end application testing on our backup system without any interruption to our primary environment. Maxava HA Simulated Role Swap is not a replacement for a full role swap or failover, but it is a great feature in its own right,” said Lester Hightower, AVP of IT, Florida East Coast Railway

With SRS particularly valuable for organizations who struggle to afford downtime to effectively test their DR plan, a simulated role swap delivers the ability to test applications on the backup system without the need to perform a full role swap or failover. SRS allows the ability to simulate a role swap over point in time data, allowing point in time data integrity checks, and pauses and suspends updates to the backup system.

Simulated Role Swap allows you to gain confidence with the role swap process prior to running a live role swap. It will also allow you to identify any potential issues that may occur during the process and is ideal to use if:

•        You have not completed a full role swap

•        You need applications available 24/7 and planning production downtime to do a live full role swap has been challenging

•        You would like to test and verify data on the backup without the need to stop the production environment

•        You would like to practice the steps to prepare for a live role swap

•        You would like to test the backup system without moving users to the backup system

The SRS function built in to Maxava HA Enterprise+ is perfect for role swap testing when investigating application function and performance on the target system in place of having to role swap the machines and role swap back again. SRS allows the continued use of a source system whilst testing on the target ensuring no production system outage and without the need for major saves and restores.

To learn more information about the Simulated Role Swap function built in to Maxava HA Enterprise+ register to join our upcoming webcast on September 12 at www.maxava.com/test-your-dr-without-downtime/