Administering the multisystem environment

A multisystem environment expands the benefits of a single system environment. Cloud Pak System provides support for multisystem management and deployment.

Typically, a large business or one that has more than one geographic location operates in a multisystem environment. This environment consists of two or more systems connected to each other physically (by communications equipment) and logically (in a defined relationship, as peer or host, to other systems).

Unlike a single system environment that consists of a single, main processor centrally located with a number of local and remote devices connected to it, the systems in a multisystem environment might be at the same or different geographic locations. To increase processing power, a business might choose to add a second processor at a site and connect it to their existing processor (rather than to replace their existing processor with one that has a larger processing capacity). Besides being connected to one another, each system in this environment might have several local and remote devices connected to it. In a multisystem environment, because systems are interconnected, data can be moved through and between them, from any system to any system. Similar to a single system environment, in a multisystem environment you continue to access the resources in your cloud group and manage multiple environments from a single console.

Cloud Pak System delivers continuous availability for key applications by deploying across multiple systems in a multisystem environment. The multisystem environment contains management domains and deployment subdomains. Systems that are part of a multisystem environment are also referred to as locations.

The systems, or locations, in a management domain can share users and other catalog content, which you can manage through a single common console interface. Locations included in the management domain can be geographically separated by any distance. A management domain is used to create management relationships between two or more systems.

Up to four locations in the management domain can be further grouped into a deployment subdomain. Locations in the same deployment subdomain add the additional capability to share multi-cloud environment profiles and to deploy multisystem pattern instances. You can define any number of deployment subdomains within a management domain. A deployment subdomain is used for deploying instances from a single pattern across multiple systems.

By adding multiple systems to a management domain, you can perform catalog and user management across the systems in the domain. Within a management domain, you can create one or more deployment subdomains. A deployment subdomain enables patterns and shared services to be deployed across systems. This all provides additional flexibility that simplifies the implementation of high availability for products such as IBM® WebSphere® Application Server, IBM DB2®, and IBM Business Process Manager.

As always, systems can be stand-alone systems and not belong to any management domain or deployment subdomain.