This is the first part in a multi-part series on IBM Sterling Global Mailbox. 

What is Global Mailbox? 

IBM Sterling Global Mailbox helps companies address demands for high availability operations and redundancy with a robust and reliable data storage solution available across geographically distributed locations.  It is an add-on to Sterling B2B Integrator and Sterling File Gateway. 

How does Global Mailbox work? 

Global Mailbox uses several key concepts to provide a highly resilient B2Bi or SFG deployment. 

Redundancy 

Each deployment includes multiple instances of each component within the datacenter to ensure that services are always available. 

The solution is deployed across multiple data centers to ensure that if there is a full data center outage, there’s another data center to accept requests and provide business continuity. 

Data Replication 

Mailbox data is replicated within and across data centers to reduce the risk of losing data. The system always stores multiple copies of mailbox data across multiple servers. 

Load Balancing 

Network load balancers are used to: 

• Direct traffic to functioning data centers 
• Direct traffic within a data center to individual functioning server 

The load balancers monitor the environment and ensure that requests are only sent to functioning servers.  The load balancers are not provided by the solution itself and must be purchased separately. 

What does a deployment look like? 

The solution is deployed across multiple data centers.  In a healthy environment, all data centers are active – that is, they are all accepting and processing files.  Global Mailbox replicates the data across the data centers to ensure a consistent view of data. 

Each Data Center is deployed as a standalone B2Bi/SFG cluster with its own relational database and file storage.  The clusters are integrated together via data replication technologies at the mailbox layer. 

If a full data center is down, the other will still be able to accept, process and serve files.  If any components are down within the data center, there are redundant instances to take over and ensure the data center is still operational. 

What is the value of Global Mailbox? 

Global Mailbox reduces both RTO and RPO and helps ensure the business remains operational during both planned and unplanned outages.  

Global Mailbox is ideal in cases where the business needs to spread the deployment across distant data centers to increase availability.  In these cases, the network latency is typically too high to support a single cluster.  Global Mailbox allows you to deploy separate clusters in each data center and integrate them together at the mailbox level.

What are planned outages? 

Planned outages include situations where software is brought down in a controlled way for some sort of maintenance.  For example: 

• Operating system upgrade 
• Hardware upgrades
• Software patching 

What are unplanned outages? 

Unplanned outages include situations where the software is brought down abruptly due to some unplanned situation.  For example 

• Power outage 
• Network outage resulting in inaccessible servers or data centers 
• Fire 

Where can you learn more? 

• Review the Global Mailbox documentation for details on how Global Mailbox works.   
• Stay tuned for additional blog postings about Global Mailbox.