IBM Power Systems Software and Services

High Availability for the IBM Power Systems

All the founding companies of Andaio started their business as software developers in the last decade of the 20th century. With the appearance of High Availability Solutions for IBM Power Systems, then called AS/400, they soon started growing at that business line and they became absolute leaders of the IBM midrange platform HA market. The total number of High Availability solution implementations exceeds 600.

Today, with 26 years of experience, deep understanding of different HA technologies, experience from implementing solutions provided by different vendors and strong methodology, including periodical failover and failback testing and close installation monitoring, Andaio is a European leader in HA for this platform. We are enabled to cover the complete European geography.

We deliver solutions which guarantee recovery from all type of hardware, software and communication failures, human errors, Data Center contingencies and natural catastrophes. We provide 24x7 support and monitoring to the most critical environments. And as already said, we can provide solution on premise, or in the Cloud.

Protecting Our Client’s HA investment

Our service starts actually much before the implementation of a solution, assisting or clients and our partners in the right selection of a solution and in the most appropriate configuration, best fitting its specific requirements.

Our multi-vendor and multi-technology approach has also another very important advantage for both our clients and our partners. In the present some vendors are imposing on their client's technological lock-in in order to collect excessive subscriptions and maintenance fees. To all these clients we can help and asses them how to switch to solutions with better economic conditions.

Extending the coverage of IBM Power services

Through large amount of HA implementation projects, we have fostered strong support organization, implementation and service methodology and service vocation. Noticing the high quality of our services, our clients and partners soon stared demanding for more services on the IBM platform.

First, of course came a demand for backup and disaster recovery solutions. High Availability is the top-level disaster recovery solution, but many users don’t need to arrive to the top level and many others need to complement HA with different types of backup solutions. For this requirement there is a very wide range of solutions, arriving even to immutable backup solution, which provides easy recovery in case of ransomware attacks.

Collaboration, Mutual Trust and Respect: Teaming up with our Clients and Partners

This growing demand has however a “tricky part” for Andaio. While our activity was strictly limited to HA, it was always complementary and non-competing with our partners. With the expansion of the range of our services, the possibility of competing arises. The solution is however very simple: Give always preference to our partner! Our partner network is, together with our teams, our most important asset and can’t be damaged to gain occasionally additional business. In occasions, our partner realizes that together with us can improve the service to its client and then we provide our service through this partner.

This vocation of maximum flexibility also works very well when we provide outsourcing of system administration. We don’t have “one size fits all” service plan. We provide instead custom defined service plan for each client and we work, together with the client’s personnel, as unique, smoothly operating team. Software development and application modernization projects.

System Engineering, Configuration, System Administration and Outsourcing Services

Our System Engineering services may include all type of preventive, corrective and evolutive activities like:

Systems design and configuration
Systems monitoring
Backup revision and management

Help desk for systems engineers as well as end users
PTF and Operating System updates
Performance Analysis
Periodical system state reports
Recommendations and implementation of improvements

System Administration, with full or partial outsourcing of the platform management
Migrations
Security: Starting from a security audit down to solution assessment, implementation, support and integration into enterprise SIEM. Our security solutions offering also includes the Windows platform (see the page Cyber Security for more information).

Software development and application modernization projects

We are prepared to custom develop or maintain wide range of applications, as we have been doing throughout our trajectory. Lately however we are gradually specializing in application modernization.

We believe that the IT implementation in the enterprise should not represent huge efforts and spending. Our projects of legacy software modernization rescue smart business ideas and optimized processes, accumulated in the legacy software after long years of its evolution, trapped however in an old technology. The modernization projects avoid huge financial and human efforts, where many of the values accumulated in the legacy software get lost. The core idea of this approach is: How can an enterprise differentiate itself from the bulk, using the same software everybody uses? Let’s preserve the values accumulated during years of hard working and enrich them with all the possibilities offered by the new technologies.

The adoption of specific software allows also for less storage use and reduce power consumption, reducing the bills and improving the environmental footprint.

Since many years IBM has been promoting the use of new software technologies on the IBM Power Systems to the clients who remain locked in the traditional AS/400 development techniques. Actually, the gap is already unsustainable and the clients must enrich the legacy applications, connect them to open world, provide new user interface, mobility and cloud enablement.

To be successful in this type of venture it's imperative to have deep knowledge of both worlds: the legacy AS/400 and new software development methods. For this reason, Andaio is in privileged position to carry out this type of projects.