This IBM® Redpaper™ publication reviews the architecture and operations of the IBM DS8000® Global Mirror function. The document looks at different aspects of the solution in terms of performance, infrastructure requirements, data integrity, business continuity, and impact on production.

Hints and tips are provided on how to best configure the overall Global Mirror environment, in terms of connectivity, storage configuration, and specific parameters tuning. The guidelines that are provided are in general related to performance, which ultimately ensures a better recovery point objective (RPO). Therefore, we encourage you to follow those guidelines.

This paper was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working at the International Technical Support Organization, San Jose Center.

Nick Clayton is an Executive IT Specialist and Solution Architect for DS8000 development, IBM Systems. His specific interests include storage tiering, replication technology, and business resilience. He is a member of the IBM GDPS® design team. He also works with clients on their storage strategy and advises them on their deployment of IBM storage technology. Nick is the author or co-author of many patents, articles, white papers, and IBM Redbooks® publications on IBM storage technology. He is a regular presenter at storage conferences. Nick graduated from Trinity College Cambridge in 1994 with a degree in Mathematics and has had previous roles both within and outside IBM in the areas of parallel sysplex, performance, and enterprise storage. He is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology.

Alcides Bertazi joined IBM Brazil in 1979 as a Technical Specialist working in the IBM Hardware Support Center. In 1993, he moved to the Customer Support Center to provide mainframe customers with technical support on IBM z/OS®, Operational System, and IBM DB2® products. In 1999, he moved to IBM System Technology Group under Americas Storage Advanced Technical Support department covering storage products around Latin America region. Since then, he has provided presales technical support, initially for the IBM Enterprise Storage Server® product, and later for the IBM DS8000 Storage family. Currently, he is supporting the storage systems sales team in Brazil focusing on complex storage deals and technical support for critical situation resolution.

Bert Dufrasne is an IBM Certified IT Specialist and Project Leader for IBM System Storage® disk products at the ITSO, San Jose Center. He has worked at IBM in various IT areas. He has written many IBM publications, and has developed and taught technical workshops. Before joining the ITSO, he worked for IBM Global Services as an Application Architect. He holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

Peter Klee is an IBM Professional Certified IT specialist in IBM Germany. He has many years of experience in Open Systems platforms, SAN networks, and high-end storage systems. He formerly worked for a large bank in Germany where he was responsible for the architecture and the implementation of the disk storage environment. He joined IBM in 2003, where he worked for Strategic Outsourcing. Since July 2004, he has worked for ATS IBM System Storage Europe. His main focus is copy services, disaster recovery, and storage architectures for IBM DS8000 in open systems environments.

Thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project:

Theodore (TJ) Harris
Flavio Morais
Brian Sherman
Paul Spagnolo
Gail Spear
Warren Stanley
Alexander Warmuth
IBM

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