These days, high availability is a hot topic, and you strive to ensure that your system and data are always accessible. After all, the success of your organization depends on it. When it comes to high availability, it's all about eliminating single points of failure. In this TechTip, we'll look at how GSM/SMS technology can help you reduce the number of potential failures you may face.
Safety in Numbers
Any system—be it technological, biological, ecological—is vulnerable to single points of failure. The term refers to any one item that, if it fails, renders the entire system inoperable. In the human body, for example, the brain, the heart, and the liver are all examples of single points of failure. These are all critical organs that have no backups.
Good design provides duplicates for critical systems. Again using the human body as an example, we have two arms (to gather food), two legs (to catch food), two eyes (to see food), and two ears (to hear food). If one eye is put out, we can still see. If one ear is damaged, we can still hear.
When it comes to information systems, we accomplish this fallback position by having two complete systems—two bodies if you will. But hardware doesn't run your business; software does. Herein lies the danger.
Watching the Deltas
Software has many more potential points of failure than hardware because of all the possible code paths and external factors such as object locks, which are beyond the control of most software. Avoiding single points of failure in software systems requires effective measures that can remain outside the influence of a problem that may occur. The solution is automated monitoring.
With an external monitoring system that collects system information on a regular basis and compares it to a set of conditions, you can be alerted to any changes or situations that require attention.
The process of sending alerts, however, has its own set of single points of failure. Popular methods for sending alerts include email and modems using dial-up phones lines. But what happens when the network goes down? What if someone unplugs a critical cable? What if you send your alerts by email and the network router or mail server is down?
This is a perfect example of a single point of failure. Because email requires the network, if the network is down, the mail cannot be sent. The message will sit in the queue undelivered until the network is back up—too late to be of any help or value.
Likewise, a similar situation can arise when sending alerts via dial-up modem. What if the paging company's modem has a failure or is inaccessible? Some major paging providers have been known to change modems and phone numbers without notifying every customer. If modem setup and access deviates from your preset configuration, the alerts you depend on may fail to reach you.
Still other obstacles can stand between you and the critical alert that would have kept your system and data available: the telecom administrator changing the phone line to require a 9 before dial-out; long-distance calls becoming blocked; a line being disconnected altogether.
Wireless to the Rescue
GSM/SMS technology can eliminate a lot of these single points of failure. Because it's wireless technology, there are no phone lines to worry about. There are no modems that must be connected to in order for the alert to be received. (This is important because many modems don't like to connect to one another, especially the AS/400 internal modem, which doesn't seem to like to connect to anyone but IBM.) There are no busy signals and, since GSM is continuously connected to the network, transmissions are quick and can be sent anywhere in the world in seconds.
By switching to wireless GSM/SMS technology, you can eliminate single points of failure that include unavailable phone lines, network failure that prevents email transmission, and unannounced changes to services. You can also react more quickly to situations requiring attention because GSM/SMS notification happens far more quickly than modem-to-pager transmission (around 10 seconds for GSM vs. two minutes for modem-to-pager).
While the software and hardware challenges to high availability may not change, with wireless GSM/SMS, you'll be able to react more efficiently by eliminating single points of failure that could render your monitoring and notification systems useless.
Check out Bytware's offerings in the MC Showcase Buyer's Guide.
Mike Grant is CEO and head of development for Bytware, Inc.
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