Shadowbase Development News

John R. Hoffman
Sr. Manager of
Shadowbase
Development

Latest Shadowbase Release Highlights

It has been a busy spring and summer releasing software. This fall, I’d like to highlight some of the improvements in our latest General Availability releases.

Highlights for HPE NonStop replication include:

• Increased limits on row size to allow replicating long rows in SQL/MX tables and in Enscribe Key-Sequenced files
• Increased limits on the primary key size for Enscribe Key-Sequenced files
• Support for replicating SQL/MX tables with SYSKEYs, including tables that use SYSKEYs for the primary key, as well as tables that use SYSKEYs as clustering keys within a primary key
• Support for replicating Enscribe Queue files without using mapping tables for the queue file’s SYSKEY
• Larger communication blocks for more efficient network utilization
• New User Exit functionality, allowing a text parameter to be passed to the user exit on a DBS by DBS basis

The latest General Availability releases for Shadowbase for Other Servers includes:

• Increased cached SQL statements limits (from 50 to 1000), which will significantly improve performance for customers with a large number of tables
• Support for Oracle 12c databases using HPE Shadowbase Log Source for Oracle
• Bi-directional replication support with event cutoff by HPE Shadowbase Log Source for Oracle
• TRS and Direct Writer support for named transactions when applying data to Oracle databases
• Password obfuscation

Shadowbase Compare for SQL/MX and SQLMP has a taken a giant step forward in its performance when using the Remote Agent. It now reads records on both systems in batches and calculates the checksum for the batch, and Compare now reads and checksums batches of records on both the source and target. Only the checksum is used for the initial comparison, dramatically reducing the traffic across the network. It also has several usability enhancements requested by our customers, including the ability to display both the queries being executed and their associated explain plan generated by the SQL executor. We strongly recommend upgrading to this release for anyone who is using Shadowbase Compare to compare SQL tables.

Lastly, we have a new release of our OSS software for SQL/MX replication that dramatically improves DOC writing performance. This release is currently available via Controlled Availability from Gravic. The new functionality will, of course, be included in the next General Availability release scheduled for first quarter of next year. Please contact Shadowbase Support if you are interested in testing or using this new release prior to then.

These are just some of the highlights for the latest releases; there are many more enhancements. Please see the release SOFTDOCS for more information.

For our customers who purchased Shadowbase software through HPE, all of the General Availability releases are available through HPE NonStop Scout. All other customers can receive the releases directly from Gravic; contact Shadowbase Support for instructions on downloading the release. I have provided two tables at the end of this column to assist you with determining the components and their latest versions, organized by HPE Product ID / SKU. The first table lists HPE Shadowbase products for HPE NonStop, and the second one lists the HPE Shadowbase products for Other Servers.

Coming Soon

Looking forward, we continue to improve the HPE Shadowbase products. First and foremost, look for a major announcement at the Connect HPE NonStop Technical Boot Camp about Shadowbase Synchronous Replication, a continuing development focus with additional features planned for the upcoming releases.

Other upcoming highlights include:

• General Availability for Shadowbase Log Source Collection for DB2 databases
• Support for multiplexed log files and container databases and other enhancements in Shadowbase Log Source Collection for Oracle
• Enhanced support for sizzling-hot-takeover configurations to prevent erroneous updates to the backup database from replicating back to the primary system
• Better parallelism for heavily updated tables by further partitioning replication of a single table or partition down multiple threads
• Improved integration with encryption technologies for more comprehensive data-at-rest protection

Table 1 – HPE NonStop Replication Component Versions

Table 2 – HPE Other Servers Replication Component Versions

I’d like to welcome our newest additions to Shadowbase Development, Aaron Rosenwinkel and Joseph Wynn. Both are recent college graduates who joined us this spring. They bring renewed excitement and enthusiasm to our group. I’m sure you will be seeing the fruits of their contributions in future releases.

As always, please keep us abreast of your future technology direction, needs, and wants in the data replication, data integration, and data synchronization space so we can plan to meet them accordingly.

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