Customer Story
Boyd Gaming
Assure iTERA keeps Boyd Gaming running smoothly, 24/7
Boyd Gaming can’t afford downtime in its 24/7 environment. Excellent customer service and data integrity are critical to the company’s success in the gaming industry. The company looked for an HA solution that would help them avoid out-of-synch conditions and achieve repeatable role swaps.
Looking to examine its high availability (HA) strategy and enhance its capabilities, Boyd Gaming brought in IBM® System i veteran Jim Ravens as Business Recovery Manager.
“When I came on board, the mandate from my boss Marv Magnani, Application Services Manager, was to achieve successful, repeatable role swaps, no matter what it took,” said Ravens.
The team was looking for an HA solution that would be easy to manage and help them avoid out-of-synch conditions.
At an IBM Technical Conference in Las Vegas, Magnani learned about Assure iTERA HA from Precisely. Both Magnani and Ravens took a closer look at the product and were very encouraged. Assure iTERA HA looked very simple and efficient to them, particularly because of the way remote journaling was incorporated into the solution.
The lease on the IBM® System i Model 740 on which Boyd Gaming ran its back-office financial applications was close to expiration, and the company decided to upgrade to a new model 820. There were still a few months on the lease when Ravens had the idea to bring in the new machine early to use as an HA target box to evaluate Assure iTERA HA. IBM even let Boyd Gaming have the machine early at no extra charge to conduct the test.
The plan was to install the HA software, have the application data fully replicated, and successfully perform a role swap in three days. Within the three days, Assure iTERA HA was installed and the role swap was not only executed successfully, it was completed in about five minutes.
Read our case study to understand how Assure iTERA was able to meet their needs.
