Building a Disaster-proof Data Center with HP Serviceguard for Linux, June 2007

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Introduction
Linux remains the fastest-growing operating system in the world for a good reason. It has enabled
countless companies worldwide to transform their IT strategy, capitalize on business-critical
functionality, reduce IT implementation and maintenance expenditures, and achieve more flexibility
for competitive preparedness over the long term.
Today, many IT environments use Linux for an increasing number of disparate workloads—HP
included. Not only has HP implemented the technology in its own enterprise, but HP is also leading
the industry by adding value to Linux, providing a faster and better return on your IT investment. HP
offers end-to-end open source and Linux solutions that are proven components of an Adaptive
Infrastructure, in which business and IT are synchronized to capitalize on change. And with Linux
running on standards based platforms, backed by services and support from HP, you can safely and
confidently implement a UNIX®-like operating environment.
And, as you have come to expect from all of HP innovative products and services, HP enables Linux to
perform as a core infrastructure component that will help your enterprise adapt to whatever the future
might bring. Linux has become an important component in all areas of the data center, including
those that are core to the business. CIOs cite business continuity as a major issue whenever they are
surveyed about their main needs and concerns. Mitigating risk and reducing the business impact and
costs of outages are ongoing concerns for business and IT executives. Significant technology and
social and business changes over the past decade have heightened these concerns. During this time,
more business and customer services have moved online. Back office computing no longer dominates;
today business technology is on the front lines. In the past four years, consolidation initiatives have
concentrated more IT services into fewer systems. Business technology trends such as virtualization
accentuate those pressures even further. Moreover, business pressures have driven more business to
deliver their services all the time, 24x365.
For many enterprises, the need to deliver constant IT services has become a requirement in many
industries. These needs are driven by changes such as globalization, by online employee and supply
chain IT services, and by online customer and customer support services. Taken together, these all
drive the need for full-time 24x365 access to IT services. This specifically means that long recovery
times jeopardize the health of the business. In these circumstances, enterprises must move from a
recovery-orientation to a disaster-tolerant orientation. They make this move when the impact on the
business is great enough to impact the top line, to impact customer loyalty, and impact brand
reputation. Rather than just recovering their IT services, the enterprises must keep their business in
operation during, and in spite of, all outages, whether caused by natural disasters, technology
failures, or human error.
HP has been delivering disaster tolerant solutions to its customers for more than 20 years and
introduced one of the first solutions on Linux. HP is the best vendor able to deliver a total and
complete solution that embraces the full range of server and storage solutions available in the
marketplace today. HP is not limited to just servers storage, one server technology, or one storage
technology. No matter how stringent your technology needs and preferences are, HP can design and
deliver complete disaster tolerant solutions to meet your requirements.
HP recently demonstrated these solutions and recorded a video that not only provides a clear
description of the breadth, depth, and capabilities of HP solutions, but also shows a real to life
simulation of how these solutions protect the business when a disastrous event takes place. To
demonstrate the HP disaster tolerant capabilities on Linux, a streaming video application paused only
briefly when the primary data center blew up which was protected by HP Serviceguard for Linux and
HP StorageWorks XP Cluster Extension Software.
This white paper describes HP disaster tolerant solutions implemented with HP Serviceguard for Linux
working for you.