Connectria is a global leader in cloud hosting and managed services for IBM, AWS, Azure, and more. We offer expertise across a wide selection of services that includes security and compliance, cost resource optimization, cloud adoption, consulting, professional services, and much more. We combine strategy, cloud migration, managed services, and modernization capabilities to deliver end-to-end solutions for complex infrastructure challenges.

We help you connect the dots between where you are today and where you want to be by delivering the talent and support you need to maximize your security compliance and performance. This article will examine Connectria’s hybrid cloud architecture with Power Systems and discuss examples leveraging DRaaS with your on-premise environment.

A Closer Look

We have continued to share insights into our hybrid solution. Now, we are pleased to share the latest architecture diagrams to showcase how it can be leveraged.

Latency has always been the biggest challenge because it impacts application usability. Our newest data centers on the East and West coasts were chosen in our effort to address the primary cause of latency which is distance. Having Power Systems physically next to a public cloud provider reduces the impact of latency on end-user applications.

The diagram above depicts some of the capabilities and features within the data center. The public hyperscale clouds can be connected to our data center with less than 2ms latency into each of the availability zones within each provider. Connectria provides this connectivity as a managed service and can size as needed to your environment. Our connectivity from the data center into these providers can be sized from 50 megabits all the way to the maximum that each provider will allow. Some providers are able to handle up to 40 gigabits and some have indicated that they will be supporting 100 gigabits in the near future. This bandwidth should be able to accommodate any of the largest environments out there and we’re certain that we can accommodate any workload.

How Connectria Runs IBM Power Systems Workloads

Moving down slightly on the left, looking at the box labeled US-East, you will note some icons indicating various components within our data centers. Starting with the customer isolated VLAN/VRF, this is where your IBM Power Systems virtual machine (LPAR) would reside. The LPAR can run either the IBM i OS, commonly referred to as AS400 or iSeries, or the AIX operating system. The LPAR can access the internet through optional virtual or physical firewalls that we can provide. Connectria’s new Edge Connect service enables customers to bring their devices to Connectria data centers where we can provide the rack, power, cooling, as well as connectivity needed. Some good examples of devices would be things like SD-WAN appliances, MPLS Routers, or hardware that cannot be virtualized.

Running each IBM LPAR is current generation IBM Power Systems (POWER9) hardware. We can provide this hardware in a number of different fashions. We have a cloud-based offering that leverages the S922 platform and licensing can be provided on a pay-as-you-go basis. With our cloud offering, we can provide Power Systems cores and OS entitlements in increments as small as one-tenth of a core.

You may have LPAR requirements that exceed our standard cloud sizes in which case we can provide dedicated environments based on the S914, S924, and even the E950 and E980 platforms. In some cases, we’ve had customers who have wanted to retain ownership of their Power Systems hardware in the environment. This isn’t a problem. We can provide the same level of management, colocation space, as well as ping, power, and cooling to meet those needs.

Shared Components

Our data centers also provide a number of shared components for our customers using IBM Power Systems.

For AIX backups, we leverage Commvault enterprise backup with our multi-cloud backup service which is based on a number of cloud storage providers. Alternatively, we can leverage your public cloud of choice for storage for long-term backups. Restores can be performed out of either data center from our highly available Commvault environment in the event of a disaster.

For IBM i backups, we can provide shared virtual tape libraries (VTL) for backups, and we replicate the VTL from our production facility to the DR facility to ensure that even in a disaster you have access to your backups. Facilitate and reduce the impact of backing up, we can provide flash copy backups for the IBM i platform which will reduce or eliminate the need for any outage windows to perform the backups. To meet your needs for storage on the IBM i and AIX platforms, we provide NVME flash storage using IBM Flash Core Modules (FCM) with the IBM Storwize V7000 Gen3 or IBM Flash System V7200.

Between the production and disaster recovery sites, we can use IBM Global Mirror and replicate the storage. This type of SAN-to-SAN replication is a mirror or block-level copy of your production system’s disk resources and can ensure nothing is lost when a disaster occurs. To ensure that replication is possible between the sites, we have diverse multipath connectivity for both the SAN replication, the VTL replication, and we can also support software-based logical replication over this same link.

In our US-West data center, on the right side of the diagram, we have the exact same components and capabilities. There is no requirement for either region to run production. Depending upon needs, production can be deployed on either coast. The only difference between our US-East and US-West data centers is the emission of Google’s compute cloud, which is located in Los Angeles, about 10-12 milliseconds from our US-West facility.

Safe and Secure

Security has been at the forefront of Connectria’s priorities since the inception of the organization. Over 20 years ago, our first customer required a highly secure, DR protected, AIX environment. Our 24/7 security operation center (SOC) manages and protects the proprietary data for our customers of all sizes, in all industries. Connectria’s security and compliance team is available to assist you with navigating the complexities of hybrid cloud and addressing any concerns your team or your auditors might have.

Our enterprise-grade data centers are and have been, purpose-built for high availability and redundancy since Connectria’s inception. Given our compliance background, all of the data centers are built with PCI, DSS, SOC1, SOC2, HIPAA, HITECH, FISMA moderate, FERPA, and ISO 27001 compliance in mind.

Connectria can manage as little or as much of the environment as you want. Also, keep in mind that we can start out small by simply providing the DR for the main production LPARs or a portion of your VM or network environment. We can augment your staff and provide remote management of your equipment if you run into problems finding qualified candidates.

Watch the Webinar

Contact one of our experts today! With our services, we can let you and your team focus on things that make your organization successful and eliminate some of the mundane aspects of DR production. To learn more about hybrid cloud disaster recovery for IBM i and AIX, view our on-demand webinar:

Hybrid Cloud DR Strategies for IBM i and AIX