Db2 for z/OS & Db2ZAI

We are an on-prem DB2 z/OS shop running on a Z16 and have to change our disaster recovery strategy.  Looking to hear how other mainframe customers are tackling this (on-prem third party site vs. cloud disaster recovery).  

Hello Kristin,

At Union Pacific, we run 20 DB2 z/OS subsystems all on z13 hardware.  Our DR strategy is a failover scenario between data centers.  If we have a hard down situation with a physical CPU, we'll move production DB2 workloads to another CPU if need be, but otherwise we are setup to take the whole environment to the alternate data center.  We have synchronous disk and tape writes between datacenters.  Our network can flip from one data center to another, so as to not impact the clients (just a simple reconnect, and they are back online).  We do an annual DR every DST, where we do the actual flip of the entire Mainframe environment to the alternate data center.  

We are an on-prem DB2 z/OS shop running on a Z16 and have to change our disaster recovery strategy.  Looking to hear how other mainframe customers are tackling this (on-prem third party site vs. cloud disaster recovery).  

Thank you!  So ultimately you have two mainframes hosted between your primary office and a secondary site?

Hello Kristin,

At Union Pacific, we run 20 DB2 z/OS subsystems all on z13 hardware.  Our DR strategy is a failover scenario between data centers.  If we have a hard down situation with a physical CPU, we'll move production DB2 workloads to another CPU if need be, but otherwise we are setup to take the whole environment to the alternate data center.  We have synchronous disk and tape writes between datacenters.  Our network can flip from one data center to another, so as to not impact the clients (just a simple reconnect, and they are back online).  We do an annual DR every DST, where we do the actual flip of the entire Mainframe environment to the alternate data center.  

We are an on-prem DB2 z/OS shop running on a Z16 and have to change our disaster recovery strategy.  Looking to hear how other mainframe customers are tackling this (on-prem third party site vs. cloud disaster recovery).  

We are an on-prem DB2 z/OS shop running on a Z16 and have to change our disaster recovery strategy.  Looking to hear how other mainframe customers are tackling this (on-prem third party site vs. cloud disaster recovery).  

Hi Kristin,

We have two z16's one at primary and other at DR site.  Disk is replicated between them.  In the event of a disaster, we IPL the DR site mainframe and switch network over.   This handles the hardware outage and major disaster scenarios but not the data corruption scenario, where the replicated disk would also contain the corrupt data.  For this, we have a full point in time (using logs) procedure in place which is regularly tested.

Thanks, Sara

We are an on-prem DB2 z/OS shop running on a Z16 and have to change our disaster recovery strategy.  Looking to hear how other mainframe customers are tackling this (on-prem third party site vs. cloud disaster recovery).  

Thanks for your reply Sara,

Is your off-site mainframe co-shared, meaning do you share the box with another company or do you specifically have your own owned mainframe just in a third party location?

Hi Kristin,

We have two z16's one at primary and other at DR site.  Disk is replicated between them.  In the event of a disaster, we IPL the DR site mainframe and switch network over.   This handles the hardware outage and major disaster scenarios but not the data corruption scenario, where the replicated disk would also contain the corrupt data.  For this, we have a full point in time (using logs) procedure in place which is regularly tested.

Thanks, Sara

We are an on-prem DB2 z/OS shop running on a Z16 and have to change our disaster recovery strategy.  Looking to hear how other mainframe customers are tackling this (on-prem third party site vs. cloud disaster recovery).