RDF System Management Manual for J-series and H-series RVUs (RDF 1.10)

1 Introducing RDF

This manual describes the Remote Database Facility (RDF) subsystem as implemented in version 1,

update 11 of the HP NonStop RDF/IMP, IMPX, and update 10 of the RDF/ZLT independent products.

Customers who install RDF 1.10 can use existing RDF configuration scripts provided the scripts are

not making use of new functionality.

This chapter, which is intended for all readers, discusses these topics:

• “RDF Subsystem Overview” (page 28)

• “User Interfaces” (page 33)

• “RDF Processes” (page 35)

• “RDF Operations” (page 37)

RDF monitors changes made to a production database on a local (primary) system and maintains

a copy of that database on one or more remote (backup) systems. Because it applies changes to

the backup database as soon as they are detected on the primary system, RDF keeps the backup

database continuously up to date with changes made by business applications on the primary

system. You are able, therefore, to switch your business operations from the primary system to the

backup system with minimal interruption and loss of data in the event of planned or unplanned

outages of the primary system. With NonStop RDF/ZLT, the failover involves no loss of data.

RDF also allows you to use backup databases as read-only resources to balance the overall workload

and improve response times. Activities at a backup system can include querying the database,

processing heavy batch-reporting loads, and consolidating data from multiple sites into one central

site.

Backup systems might be located far from the primary system for protection against regional

disasters, communicating with the primary system over an Expand network.

System managers and operators control RDF through RDFCOM, a utility much like the TMFCOM

command interpreter used to access TMF.

RDF/IMP, IMPX, and ZLT generate fully-tokenized command, event, error, and warning messages

in the Event Management System (EMS) log. System managers and operators can monitor those

messages online using Viewpoint or whatever other tool they normally use for monitoring $0. In

addition, they can use the supplied EMS filter RDFFLTO with an EMS printing distributor to isolate

the RDF messages to an entry-sequenced file which they then can peruse using the RDFSCAN utility.

RDF works with the Transaction Management Facility (TMF) subsystem.

There are three versions of the RDF product:

1. RDF/IMP (product number T0346) provides online product initialization, online database

synchronization, triple contingency support, subvolume-level and file-level replication,

stop-update-to-time (for quiescing the backup database to a stable state), and many other

features.

2. RDF/IMPX (product numbers T0346 and T0347) provides the same functionality as RDF/IMP,

but also replication of auxiliary audit trails, support for network transactions, and lockstep

operation.

3. RDF/ZLT (product number T0618) provides zero lost transaction (ZLT) protection using mirrored

disks.

NOTE: HP NonStop RDF software works with HP NonStop S-Series servers, HP Integrity NonStop

NS-Series servers, and HP Integrity NonStop BladeSystems.

Before reading further in this manual, you should be familiar with the concepts, terminology, and

functions of the NonStop TMF product. You should know about the objects on which TMF operates,

such as transactions, audit trails, and audit volumes. You should understand how TMF software