How Hybrid Cloud Solutions from Rocket Software Enables Businesses’ IT Infrastructure to Remain Resilient

December 18, 2023

In today's demanding business world, downtime is not an option — especially with a platform as business-critical as the mainframe. Downtime, even if it’s just for a few seconds, can be an operational and financial catastrophe. Without an efficient mainframe enterprise data storage, you're likely facing several challenges that put your business resiliency at risk:

• Exorbitant data storage costs continue to increase with no end in sight.
• Data storage infrastructure scalability is unsustainable as data continues to increase.
• Legacy data storage solutions lead to being reactive instead of proactive with data storage.
• Service level agreement compliance and reporting is becoming harder to satisfy.

Rocket Software’s Enterprise Storage solutions that support hybrid IT infrastructures help companies prevent potential outages and recover faster from inadvertent outages and disasters to ensure your business remains resilient and on the path to modernization. With Rocket Software’s Enterprise Storage solutions, customers:

• Control mainframe operating costs by reducing the number of I/Os by up to 90%, maximizing capacity.
• Keep mainframe data safe with rapid recovery and automated data asset backup.
• Eliminate single points of failure and centralize visibility into their entire backup environment.
• Maintain business continuity by preventing potential outages and recovering faster from inadvertent outages and disasters.
• Rapidly restore data and simplify compliance reporting for internal controls and government regulations.
• Archive mainframe data that is not frequently needed to the cloud or off-platform storage appliances.

Let’s look at Rocket Cloud Connector, Rocket Data Recovery Manager for Dell zDP, and Rocket Mainstar® Catalog RecoveryPlus, which are part of Rocket Software’s Enterprise Storage Solutions, to understand how businesses can maximize the proven processing power of their mainframe with support of hybrid cloud:

Rocket Coud Connector: Reduce mainframe storage costs and keep data secure and accessible from anywhere

According to IDC, Data storage volume is growing by 65% compounded annually, with worldwide data expected to hit 175 zettabytes by 2025. As data grows, it’s being stored for longer periods than ever before. z/OS generates 70% of operational data for banks, retailers, and large enterprises globally. While critical, this data growth also leads to exorbitant data storage costs, pressure to maintain a healthy data environment, strain on legacy storage solutions, and difficulty meeting compliance.

With Rocket® Cloud Connector, businesses can move data that doesn’t require constant recall to the cloud to help reduce storage costs. Using the cloud as secondary storage also allows data to be recovered to any disaster recovery site.

Rocket Cloud Connector gives businesses modern hybrid cloud storage for z/OS capabilities to copy and move mainframe data to private or public cloud storage or on-prem storage appliances. This enables businesses to improve economics for z/OS backup and recovery or archive, as well as improve overall business resiliency in an age where data drives everything.

Rocket Data Recovery Manager for Dell zDP: Ensure your critical mainframe data assets are protected and recoverable

Ensuring that your business is resilient to every type of outage is daunting. With Rocket Data Recovery Manager, businesses can quickly restore access to data and meet demands for continuous data availability, and with the available Data Recovery for Dell zDP option, can execute point-in-time surgical recovery at the dataset level with Dell zDP snapshots. More specifically, Rocket Data Recovery Manager:

• Reduces backup time by 40-60%: Fast backup times and easy-to-use tools streamline the process of preparing for local recovery or disaster recovery. Powerful filtering options and easy set-up during implementation help ensure that critical data sets are always backed up.
• Restores data faster and easier: By automatically analyzing defined applications, Data Recovery Manager provides an application overview that can become the central source for recovery planning information. The overview quickly produces a file that contains a complete list of data sets required to successfully restore the application at the recovery site.
• Proves compliance: Data Recovery Manager helps businesses prove their recoverability and be prepared for data backup audits on IBM zSystems® by producing critical data asset lists that demonstrate compliance with internal and federal regulations like the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). Businesses can also show that backups are retained for the appropriate amount of time.

Rocket Mainstar® Catalog RecoveryPlus: Minimize risk with uninterrupted access to mainframe data

Because ICF (Integrated Catalog Facility) catalogs are the key control structures that provide access to IBM® z/OS® data, protecting them is mission-critical. Rocket Mainstar Catalog RecoveryPlus (CR+) enables businesses’ storage and system administrators to operate and maintain healthy and efficient ICF catalogs. Rocket Mainstar Catalog RecoveryPlus dramatically reduces the financial impact of catalog outages by reducing the risk of failure, increasing the speed of recovery, and improving administrator productivity.

Modernize your IT infrastructure with Rocket Software.