FDRPAS PLUG AND SWAP

(Little Falls, NJ September 11, 2000) -- Today, Innovation Data Processing, Little Falls, NJ, announced the introduction of FDRPASTM ("FDR Plug and Swap") for the non-disruptive movement of OS/390 disk volumes from one disk device to another.

When new disk subsystems (hardware) are installed, FDRPAS can be used to swap active online disk volumes to drives in the new subsystem without disrupting normal operations or requiring a re-IPL.

This allows a 24x7 installation, with no window for major re-configurations and hardware changes, to install and activate new disk hardware. Even installations with maintenance windows can use FDRPAS to swap to new disk hardware during normal business hours.

FDRPAS supports a wide variety of disk devices from hardware vendors including IBM, EMC, StorageTek, Amdahl, and Hitachi. It can swap disk volumes between disks from the same hardware vendor or different hardware vendors without any special software or hardware modifications.

FDRPAS can swap volumes in use on a single system image, as well as those attached to multiple systems or LPARs in a shared-DASD complex or sysplex, whether locally or remotely attached. The swap of a volume can be initiated on any system in the complex, and the other systems will automatically join in the swap operation. Multiple volumes can be swapped concurrently.

Only the source and target devices are accessed by FDRPAS. It does not use any additional communication between systems (such as TCP/IP, a dataset on a third disk volume or coupling facilities).

When the swap of a volume is requested, FDRPAS will copy all allocated tracks on the volume to the new disk device, while simultaneously detecting all updates to original device; updated tracks will be re-copied if necessary. The new device remains offline to OS/390 during the copy, so that the copied data is protected until the swap is complete. Once the copy is completed, FDRPAS will swap the devices so that all I/O is now directed to the new device and the old device is no longer in use; the new device is placed online and the old device is offline.

The swap is accomplished with minimal impact on the performance of applications using the volumes being swapped. Applications continue to execute, unaware that the data movement is occurring or has completed. FDRPAS will dynamically modify the copy process in response to system activity (e.g., copying inactive datasets before active datasets and I/O pacing), to minimize its effect on the system.

Swapping of a volume can be terminated at any time before the final swap without affecting the original device. After a successful swap, the now-offline original device can be used as a point-in-time backup of the volume, at the point of the final swap. When all volumes in an old disk subsystem have been swapped to new disks, the old subsystem can be disconnected and removed.

FDRPAS will be generally available in First Quarter 2001, with limited distribution beginning in November 2000.

For more information, contact Innovation Data Processing, 275 Paterson Avenue, Little Falls, NJ 07424, 973-890-7300, email sales@fdrinnovation.com or visit our web site at http://www.innovationdp.fdr.com