102 IBM System Storage N series Hardware Guide8.1 Overview of MetroClusterIBM N series MetroCluster, as illustrated in Figure 8-1, is a solution that combines N serieslocal clustering with synchronous mirroring to deliver continuous availability. MetroClusterexpands the capabilities of the N series portfolio. It works seamless with your host andstorage environment to provide continuous data availability between two sites whileeliminating the need to create and maintain complicated failover scripts. You can serve dataeven if there is a complete site failure.As a self-contained solution at the N series storage controller level, MetroCluster is able totransparently recover from failures, so business-critical applications continue uninterrupted.Figure 8-1 MetroClusterMetroCluster is a fully integrated solution designed to be easy to administer that is built onproven technology. It provides automatic failover to remote data center to achieve thesegoals: Helps protect business continuity in the event of a failure in the primary data center Helps reduce dependency on IT staff for manual actions Provides synchronous mirroring up to 100 kmIts data replication capabilities are designed to do these functions: Maintain a constantly up-to-date copy of data at a remote data center Support replication of data from a primary to a remote site to maintain data currency
