Positioning A Virtual Appliance; I.2 Overview Of Gdps Virtual Appliance - IBM z13s Technical Manual

I.2 Overview of GDPS Virtual Appliance

To reduce IT costs and complexity, many enterprises are consolidating independent servers
into Linux images (guests) running on z Systems servers. Linux on z Systems can be
implemented either as guests running under z/VM or native Linux logical partitions (LPARs)
on z Systems servers. Workloads with an application server that runs on Linux on z Systems
and a database server that runs on z/OS are common. The following are some examples:
WebSphere Application Server running on Linux and CICS, DB2 running under z/OS
SAP application servers running on Linux and database servers running on z/OS
With a multi-tiered architecture, you need to provide a coordinated near-continuous
availability and disaster recovery solution for both z/OS and Linux on z Systems.
GDPS Virtual Appliance is a fully integrated continuous availability and disaster recovery
solution for Linux on z Systems customers that include these components:
An operating system image
The application components
An appliance management layer, which makes the image self-contained
Application programming interfaces (APIs) and user interfaces (UIs) for customization,
administration, and operation tailored for the appliance function.
GDPS Virtual Appliance is designed to improve both consumability and time-to-value for
customers.
Figure I-2 shows different solutions and how to position the GDPS Virtual Appliance.
Figure I-2 Positioning a virtual appliance
A virtual appliance is a fully integrated software solution that has been targeted and optimized
for a specific business problem:
Targeted
while using any underlying capabilities of the platform
Purposed
particular applications and hardening then before delivery
Optimized
and removing unnecessary attributes
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IBM z13s Technical Guide
for a specific deployment platform to reduce potential configuration complexity
for a specific, high-level business context or IT architecture by installing
by choosing the appropriate configuration, knowing all elements of the system