To provide database administrators with improved failover options wrapped around better management and performance, Sybase Inc. is readying new capabilities for its Replication Server software.
Replication Server 12.6, due this month, allows 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 sending copies of data and for general data backup, said Sybase officials, in Dublin, Calif. The software enables customers to synchronize and send data bidirectionally across leading database platforms, including those from Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and IBM, as well as Sybases ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise).
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.
A new Java-based Sybase Central plug-in GUI and automated setup in Replication Server 12.6 reduce complexity in administration, officials said. Enhanced symmetric multiprocessing support, in conjunction with new parallel Data Server Interface support, is designed to handle high transaction volumes at a low latency to properly allocate resources and handle heavier data movement loads.
Joseph Buhl, DBA for Philadelphia-based V-Span Inc., has been running a beta version of Replication Server 12.6 and gave high marks to Sybases effort to incorporate database-level replication for setup configuration and processes in the products newest version.
Due to its high internal service-level agreements and always-on customer- facing interfaces, Buhl said conferencing service provider V-Span envisions big benefits from 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.”