IBM AIX Continuous Availability Features - IBM Redbooks

Chapter 2. AIX continuous availability
features
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This chapter explains the features and tools that exist in AIX to enhance the availability of the
AIX operating system. It summarizes both new and existing AIX availability, reliability, and
serviceability features and tools.
Today's IT industries can no longer afford system outages, whether planned or unplanned.
Even a few minutes of application downtime can cause significant financial losses, erode
client confidence, damage brand image, and create public relations problems.
The primary role of an operating system is to manage the physical resources of a computer
system to optimize the performance of its applications. In addition, an operating system
needs to handle changes in the amount of physical resources allocated to it in a smooth
fashion and without any downtime. Endowing a computing system with this self-management
feature often translates to the implementation of self-protecting, self-healing, self-optimizing,
and self-configuring facilities and features.
Customers are looking for autonomic computing, in the ability of components and operating
systems to adapt smoothly to changes in their environment. Some of the most prominent
physical resources of an operating system are processors, physical memory, and I/O
devices; how a system deals with the loss of any of these resources is an important feature in
the making of a continuously available operating system. At the same time, the need to add
and remove resources, as well as maintain systems with little or no impact to the application
or database environment, and hence the business, are other important considerations.
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