IBM Z Content Solutions | System Recovery Boost

Introduction
How to get started
Technical resources
What's New

IBM Z System Recovery Boost Content Solution

Welcome to the IBM Z System Recovery Boost content solution, your homepage for technical resources.

With the z15 machine, you have access to System Recovery Boost, which provides capabilities to minimize the impacts of stopping and restarting z/OS. System Recovery Boost increases your processor capacity during startup and shutdown, decreasing the time it takes to process backlog.

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Big Picture: System Recovery Boost

Startup Boost is enabled by default and delivers extra processor capacity after an IPL to get you back up and running faster.

After you indicate that a shutdown is in progress, you can begin Shutdown Boost for a faster shutdown.

Update your automation to ensure that System Recovery Boost is optimized for your system, and take advantage of Turbo.

How to get started with System Recovery Boost

Speed Boost
ZIIP Boost
GDPS

Overview

Speed Boost is a capability of System Recovery Boost that improves the recovery time of exploiting operating systems when running on a subcapacity CPC.

If you are running on a subcapacity CPC, then while System Recovery Boost is active, z/OS will request that the CPC firmware increase the CP speed of the image to full capacity model speed for the duration of the boost. After the boost ends, the image will return to the subcapacity model speed.

Use the links below to learn more:

Prerequisites

Learn more about Speed Boost

Planning and Setup

Speed Boost applies only to the image being boosted; all other images not being boosted will run at subcapacity modelspeed. If you’re running on a subcapacity machine, there’s no reason not to run with speed boost. Any processing activity that uses CPs will benefit from Speed Boost.

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Turning on System Recovery Boost

Using System Recovery Boost

Overview

If your system has z Integrated Information Processors (zIIPs), then zIIP Boost can improve z/OS recovery time, assuming zIIP capacity is available to the image.

z/OS is the only operating system that can exploit the zIIP Boost capability, as it’s the only OS that can natively exploit zIIPs. While zIIP Boost is active, z/OS will make non-zIIP eligible work zIIP eligible, thus allowing most work to run on zIIPs if there isn’t sufficient CP capacity available. This provides additional capacity and parallelism to accelerate processing during the boost periods. IBM refersto this as blurring the CPs and zIIPs together.

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Prerequisites

Learn more about zIIP Boost

Planning and Setup

There are variations of zIIP Boost, depending on how the CPC is configured, as well as the priced System Recovery Boost upgrade record offering that will allow you to take additional advantage of zIIP Boost.

The most basic type of zIIP Boost is when you have defined Initial zIIPs, and no Reserved zIIPs that are backed by real processors. In this case, the zIIP blurring will happen for the duration of the boost on your defined, entitled zIIPs and at the end of the boost period. Normally, non-zIIP eligible work will stop running on zIIPs.

zIIP Boost with Reserved zIIPs

This is the case when you have some zIIPs that are defined as reserved, and some number of those can be backed by physical zIIPs. Those reserved zIIPs that can be backed by physical zIIPs will be brought online by the system at the beginning of the boost period, and then taken offline when the boost period is over.

System Recovery Boost upgrade record

This is a new priced feature for the z15 that requires you to have purchased an annual subscription for the Boost feature for your CPC that will allow you to bring up to 20 additional physical zIIPs online to the CPC for the duration of the capacity record activation, limited by the number of unused “dark core” processors you have in your CPC.

Use the links below to learn more:

Turning on System Recovery Boost

Learn more about zIIP Boost with Reserved zIIPS

Learn more about System Recovery Boost upgrade record

Overview

As part of GDPS 4.2 the system infrastructure management has been improved, allowing a reduction in the observed RTO when there is a need for the IT infrastructure to be reconfigured. This is the case in scenarios such as on-site system restart, planned site or region switch, or in case of a disaster recovery process. This has been achieved by optimizing GDPS & CPC interactions and by providing the possibility for customers to perform actions against a group of System/LPARs rather than against each one individually.

Before this change, all actions were done sequentially, repeating in each step the required handshaking between GDPS and the CPCs hosting the systems. Grouping the actions eliminates the duplicate handshaking processes and reduces substantially the overall time needed to manage multiple systems. Early testing of these changes has demonstrated an improvement of between 30% and 60%, depending on the numbers of CPCs, number of system/LPARs managed, and CPC models.

Use the links below to learn more:

Prerequisites

Learn more about GDPS

Go to the GDPS website

Planning and Setup

IBM recommends reading the following GDPS manuals, which describe how to implement these RTO improvements:

GDPS Metro Planning and Implementation Guide (ZG24-6755), section 4.7.2, SYSPLEX script statement.
GDPS Global - GM Installation and Customization Guide (ZG24-6757), section 4.5.7, SYSPLEX script statement.
GDPS Global - XRC Installation and Customization Guide (ZG24-6759), section 4.6.9, SYSPLEX script statement.

Technical resources for System Recovery Boost

Content Solution
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Multimedia

Comprehensive content collection

Find a comprehensive collection of content about
System Recovery Boost in the Knowledge Center.

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Terminal Talk Podcast

Episode 87 of Terminal Talk with Frank and Jeff features Tyler King and Kevin McKenzie discussing Instant Recovery, and how maintenance windows will get shorter with this new feature for Z.

Listen to the Podcast (24:28)

Take a deep dive into the capabilities of System Recovery Boost and understand how it works.

Read the System Recovery Boost white paper.

How you benefit from System Recovery Boost will depend on your system configuration. For general information on improving your Mean Time to Recovery, see the Redbook: System z Mean Time To Recovery

Read the Redbook

Infrastructure Resiliency

Designed for continuous availability and rapid disaster recovery, IBM Z provides industry-leading resiliency to protect your business from downtime. Watch the video to learn how IBM Z can help you achieve your availability goals.

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