IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Installation Guides > High Availability Guide for Distributed Systems > Configure for high availability and disaster recovery
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
Configure the hub monitoring server for high availability and disaster recovery
The hub monitoring server is a highly reliable component, and many users choose to run with a single hub monitoring server and use backup and restore operations to ensure that they have minimum downtime in case of a hardware failure. Other users require higher availability and less downtime and employ multiple hub monitoring servers to achieve either a high availability (HA) environment, disaster recovery (DR) environment, or a combination (high availability and disaster recovery) environment. The following section describes some of the strategies used to achieve the desired level of availability and downtime.
If you have a smaller environment and do not want to invest in additional hardware, you can set up a single hub monitoring server. Because the hub monitoring server is very reliable, there is no need to purchase any additional hardware. You can expect some downtime when patching the hub monitoring server. There are times when the monitoring server must be recycled. If you use one hub, it is important that you use a good backup and restore strategy. You can install the hub in a virtualized environment such as VMWare so that you can quickly bring up an identical virtual operating system to replace the original. In addition, there is a VMWare HA option with release 3.0.x that automates the start of a failing image on a different node.
To achieve high availability, you have two options. The first option is to implement the Hot Standby feature that is built into the monitoring server. Extensive large scale testing has taken place to ensure that Hot Standby is a robust solution. See The hot standby option.The second option is to implement an operating system cluster. Extensive testing has been performed with some operating system clusters. Supported clustering options include Windows Cluster, High Availability Cluster Multi-Processing (HACMP™), and IBM Tivoli System Automation for Multiplatforms (SA-MP).
The main difference between the clustering options is the scripts to control the automated control of resources within the cluster. In this sense, Tivoli Monitoring is cluster-ready for other clustering solutions.
For more information about using a high availability z/OS hub monitoring server, see Configure the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server on z/OS.
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Configure for high availability and disaster recovery