Data Availability

Precisely offers high availability and disaster recovery for IBM i and AIX Power Systems

What is Data Availability?

Data availability is a measure of how often your data is available to be used, whether by your own organization, or by one of your partners.

It is desirable to have your data available 24x7x365, which will permit your business to run uninterrupted. Unexpected issues and interruptions are inevitable when dealing with data management, so designing a system that can work around those issues while still delivering data is essential.

Data Availability as Part of Data Management

Some businesses are more time-sensitive than others. While every organization wants their data to remain available as much as possible, those with a critical need to restore data availability ASAP will need to invest more significantly in a system that supports their needs.

A data management plan should not be considered complete until issues of data availability have been addressed and resolved sufficiently.

Redundancy and Backups for Data Management

Much of what you need to know about data availability comes down to redundancy. When a system is made to be redundant – that is, when there are backup systems in place, ready to pick up the slack in case of a failure – it is far more capable to provide excellent availability.

Rather than having to work feverishly to get the main system back online immediately, the organization can operate as usual on the backup system while the main system failure is addressed. For most people working in the organization, nothing will seem out of the ordinary when the main system goes down, as long as a redundant system is waiting in the wings.

How Precisely Can Help