AAM overview
Make Your IT Infrastructure Work Better
AAM keeps businesses running smoothly, even if you require a 24X7 operation. By monitoring key system and application parameters, AAM can detect and automatically remedy failures so you proceed with your business. You can also avoid failures with AAM by monitoring key resources and notifying you should any of these resources reach critical conditions. AAM can also be used to implement custom automated resource management solutions that ensure your enterprise runs efficiently by maximizing your use of applications and resources.
With AAM, resources such data storage devices, systems, IP addresses, network information, and applications and databases are grouped together so that you can easily locate and manage them. You can control their availability either automatically through pre-determined policies or manually through the point-and-click interface.
Managing resources from an application perspective enhances an IT organization's ability to control business availability. AAM's Java Console presents the status of managed applications and supporting resources at-a-glance, and enables you to manage their uptime and downtime both manually and automatically with a simple point-and-click interface. Multiple, diverse, computing platforms from anywhere in your enterprise, across local and wide distances, are monitored and managed with a single easy-to-use availability system.
AAM is built on a simple yet flexible architecture. Based on sensors, triggers and rules, AAM allows for the creation of any number of automated application resources. From a simple detection and correction of a failure and extending to enforcing the automation of a predefined control process, AAM is the only automated availability tool providing this level of automation and control.
Continuous Data Center Operations and Application Availability
Use AAM to keep servers and applications available through system failures, network hardware failures, scheduled system maintenance, and through dynamic changes in end user load requirements. When an application fails, AAM immediately restarts it, either on the same server or on a designated secondary. AAM has the ability to execute N-way failover meaning companies can restart multiple applications independently, or among multiple servers, depending on their specific requirements.
Spanning Distances to Protect Against Major Disasters
AAM spans wide distances to protect sites where data and applications are replicated. This configuration provides businesses the maximum protection from major disasters. When used in conjunction with AAM for WANs modules, it ensures that in the event of a disaster necessitating a wide area site-to-site failover, both applications and data remain available and operate together, automatically. And, after your main site recovers, AAM automatically manages the recovery process by ensuring that the replicated data set, which has been updated during this period, is synchronized and returned to the primary site. This automatic process after a failover means that your applications are always accessing a current and correct data set.
Integrated Two-node Mirroring for Windows 2000
AAM Mirroring for Windows 2000 is a high-speed block level mirroring engine. It eliminates the need for a shared disk and can be used to replicate your data for business continuance. It will support distances up 6 miles between servers so you can protect your mission critical Exchange or SQL server from major disasters by creating a replicated site and letting AAM automatically switch over to it in the event of a major disaster. Because AAM Mirroring for Windows 2000 is a synchronous block level remote mirroring solution, it provides customers with a level of assurance that their important data is mirrored reliably.
Flexible Resource Management and Automation
AAM is built on a foundation that allows it to actively monitor any and all important resources within your IT infrastructure- including server states, application and server performance, network states, NIC states, storage/disk states, and more. It is built on open industry standard technology like TCP/IP and PERL. This allows you to create custom automated availability solutions that are specific to your environment. Or, if there are some functions in our standard Managers or Wizards that you would like to change, go ahead. It's easy. If you would like a hand in doing this, let us know. We have a full suite of Professional Services offerings just waiting for you. Most any customization you require can be made with absolutely no changes to your application. Manage your application resources easily, quickly and efficiently with AAM.
Non-intrusive System Maintenance
Routine systems maintenance activities can now be performed during regular business hours using AAM. Proactively relocate an application from one server to another while users continue to operate virtually uninterrupted and with an absolute mini-mum of downtime. Improved application uptime reduces operating expenses, reduces the stress on systems administrators, and increases corporate productivity.
Scalable, Open and Efficient Automated Availability
AAM is architected to scale to meet the needs of today's enterprise environments with the industry's most scalable and configurable automation and availability solution. It also features a single system image (SSI) configuration database that is common to and available across your heterogeneous enterprise. This capability makes it easy and less costly to operate in large-scale environments. Custom automation policies and availability resource groups can be implemented through industry standard facilities like PERL. To make it easy to create an availability environment, modules and toolkits are also available that provide support for specific applications such as Oracle, SQL2000, LEAGATO NetWorker, EMC SRDF and more.
Enterprise Environment Ready
AAM is ready to operate in any LAN, SAN, NAS, DAS, and WAN environment. In addition to its SSI database, it provides heterogeneous availability domains, support for virtually unlimited numbers of servers within a domain, and support for virtually any source of data your storage environment might have. For those SAN-based enterprises using consolidated storage topography, AAM can prove to be extremely valuable. By keeping your applications available and performing optimally, and ensuring your data is accessible and synchronized across replicated copies, you minimize your chances of failure and maximize your chances of keeping the business running strong.
Centralized Management Console
AAM's Central Management Console provides a single interface for managing the automation and availability of all your servers, applications, data and other allocated application resources across heterogeneous server platforms. The console is graphical. To make it easy to learn and use, AAM has a point and click user interface to create and manage your critical resources, along with built in context sensitive help. This lowers the cost of training, installation and support. The console is global and can be used to manage any AAM configuration whether it's local or remote. The same console is also used regardless of the platform. Managing your Solaris AAM enterprise is the same as managing your Windows 2000 environment. Color-coded icons appear on the console GUI and let you know the status of your important application resources instantly. One quick look and you know all is well. When any thing changes, the console instantly reflects that change graphically while AAM diagnoses the problem and notifies the appropriate staff resources and takes the necessary step to remedy the problem.
Enhanced Automated Management of Remote Resources
In enterprises using wide area replicated sites, the job of maintaining a highly available environment becomes a daunting task. The requirement to keep replicated data in sync, managing the applications, dealing with multiple subnets and their relationship to the users is nothing short of mind boggling. AAM let's companies pre-program an automated high availability business continuance plan to make this happen automatically and remotely. From IP address reassignments to dynamic router configurations, everything is handled through the AAM Central Management Console. When combined with AAM for WANs solutions, companies have the tools needed to solve these problems.
More information about AAM
