Round-The-Clock Business Information System Management For IBM System i (iSeries) And AIX

Fortune 500 companies that measure revenues in the billions, some with three digits the left of the decimal point, and profits as high as double-digit billions can easily costjustify large, multi-shift IT staffs to manage their business information systems around the clock. They can also afford to invest in high availability (HA) hardware and software to ensure that their data and applications are accessible 24/7, without exception.

That's fine for the largest of enterprises, but what about smaller businesses? How can they afford to compete against the big guys when it comes to managing round-the-clock information systems and ensuring unfailing data and application availability? Until recently, the answer was, they can't, but the economics are changing. Round-the-clock business information systems management and HA are now affordable for a much wider range of companies.

Round-the-clock systems are more than just an intellectual exercise for an increasing number of companies. Some of the "modern" reasons why more companies, including smaller ones, are moving to 24/7 operations have become clichés. They include the need to support Web presences and global operations and the need to shoehorn lengthier maintenance tasks made necessary by rapidly growing databases into shrinking maintenance windows. Other reasons are mentioned less frequently, but are still important. These include an insistence by some companies that the IT department never say no to CEOs, CFOs, marketing managers and other authorized personnel who, without warning, want to use the VPN connection from their homes to investigate an idea that comes to them on the weekend, in the evening or even in middle of the night.