APL Limited Enhances System Availability with Assure MIMIX HA for Global Operations

APL Limited, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, is a prominent player in the transportation and logistics industry. As the fifth-largest shipping company globally, APL has been in business for over 150 years, serving more than 25,000 locations across 140 countries. It operates as a subsidiary of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines (NOL). APL's extensive global operations require a robust and reliable IT infrastructure to ensure seamless service delivery. The company relies on advanced technology solutions to manage its complex logistics and transportation network efficiently. With a commitment to maintaining high availability and minimizing downtime, APL has implemented cutting-edge systems to support its operations. The company's dedication to innovation and customer satisfaction has positioned it as a leader in the industry, continually striving to enhance its services and meet the evolving needs of its clients worldwide.

APL operates around the world and around the clock. Having applications offline for maintenance or any other reason is unacceptable at any time. In fact, users have been promised that there will be no more than four hours of downtime per month. Although its core applications were running on IBM i-based Power Systems, one of the most reliable platforms in the world, APL needed to do more to meet its demanding availability requirements. Even the most reliable systems need to be shut down for regular maintenance, such as backing up data, reorganizing databases or upgrading the operating system. These necessary planned maintenance outages can be substantial. For example, an operating system upgrade can shut a system down for 30 hours or more. APL performs nightly backups to tape, to ensure that its data will be available should a disaster strike. In a traditional environment, where backup jobs are run on the production machine, this can be a problem. Production applications often have to be stopped while the backup tapes are created. Even when a save-while-active technology is used, the high volume of system and disk resources consumed by backup jobs can slow production applications to an unacceptable level. APL needed an environment that allowed it to protect its critical data and applications and maintain exceptionally high availability, without putting an undue strain on business applications.

For about 12 years now, APL has met its system and data availability needs with Assure MIMIX HA. APL outsources the management of its IBM i-based servers to HP, which maintains the systems in a facility in Plano, Texas. Production applications run on an IBM Power Systems server that manages all warehousing and inventory data. A second server sits about 12 feet from the production server. Assure MIMIX HA maintains a near real-time replica of all production data and applications on this secondary server. When the primary server goes offline or needs to be shutdown for maintenance, APL can quickly switch users to the backup server. This ability to minimize downtime is more than just theory. It is proven. Last year, APL experienced a hardware failure. Users were switched to the backup system within 10 minutes and operations ran on that server for about a month without any problems. Assure MIMIX HA also helps to minimize planned downtime. APL’s IT department is in the process of seeking approval to upgrade to POWER6 and then POWER7 processor-based Power Systems servers. During the upgrade, Assure MIMIX HA will replicate data and applications to the new server, keeping the servers in synch until the new server is ready to take over operations. Because APL’s primary and backup servers are in the same room, a disaster that destroys one would also likely bring down the other. Consequently, APL performs nightly tape backups to safeguard its data. Because the secondary system contains a near real-time replica of all production data, APL runs its backup jobs on that system, thereby eliminating any impact on production applications. APL has done five disaster recovery tests and in every instance the replicated data on the secondary server has proven to be 100 percent reliable. This is in part due to the fact that the backup system is generally no more than one second out of synch with the production data. APL recently upgraded to the latest version of Assure MIMIX HA. David Fahr

• Downtime virtually eliminated, ensuring continuous operations and minimizing disruptions.
• Maintenance windows reduced to less than four hours per month, enhancing system availability.
• Gained peace of mind with reliable disaster recovery and data protection measures.
• Proven ability to switch to backup systems within minutes during hardware failures.
• Successful disaster recovery tests with 100% reliable data replication on secondary servers.

• Reduced downtime to less than four hours per month.
• Switched to backup system within 10 minutes during hardware failure.
• Backup system generally no more than one second out of synch with production data.