Looking to provide database administrators with improved failover options wrapped around better management and performance, Sybase Inc. on Tuesday announced a number of new features to its Replication Server software.
Sybases Replication Server 12.6 enables DBAs to more easily prepare and set up multiple redundant standby sites, allowing the disaster recovery site database to function in warm standby mode while reporting copies and for backup purposes, said Naveen Puttagunta, product manager for Replication Server at the Dublin, Calif., company.
The replication tool enables customers to synchronize and send data bidirectionally across leading database platforms, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2 and Sybases Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE).
Replication Server 12.6 extends tight integration with ASE 12.5.1 and support for Linux, offering DBAs simplified migration to Linux from Sybase and non-Sybase databases.
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In addition to reducing administration complexity in its new product via a new Java-based Sybase Central plug-in GUI and automated setup, Sybase has also boosted symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support. Puttagunta said the enhanced SMP, in conjunction with new Parallel DSI (Parallel Replicate Connections), is designed to handle high transaction volumes at a low latency in order to properly allocate utilization resources and handle heavier data movement loads.
Sybases effort to incorporate database-level replication for setup configuration and setup processes in the products newest version gets high marks from Joseph Buhl, DBA for Philadelphia-based V-Span, who has been running Replication Server 12.6 in beta.
Due to very high internal service-level agreements imposed upon itself and always-on customer-facing interfaces, Buhl said V-Span, a video, audio and Web conferencing service provider, envisions big benefits from the Replication Servers multisite capability.
"Before, if you wanted to do multisite, you had to set that up on an individual basis. Traditionally, replication was difficult to set up and had to be done piece by piece," said Buhl. "[Sybase has taken] all their underlying [replication] capability and canned that where you could do that at the database level in a set of commands in a much more simplified process. Thats what were excited about."
One feature Buhl said he would like to see in future Replication Server releases is the ability to switch among active multiple systems.
Replication Server 12.6 will be available later this month, with prices starting at $25,000 per CPU, or $3,000 per server and $50 per seat.
