Use Case: IBM i Cloud Migration & Disaster Recovery Modernization

A large U.S.-based industrial distributor with over 360 users operating across domestic and international locations initiated a business-critical initiative to modernize its IBM i infrastructure and overhaul its legacy disaster recovery (DR) strategy. The client, a subsidiary within a multibillion-dollar industrial holding company, relied on a Power8 IBM i platform to run its core ERP and messaging workloads, housed in an internal office rather than a formal data center.

The client’s DR strategy had depended on an external service provider for replication and failover. However, this vendor failed to deliver meaningful DR assurance—failover tests were unsuccessful, operational support was inadequate, and recovery readiness could not be validated. Compounding this, the provider was acquired, and contract renewal terms included a 10x cost increase, effectively pricing the client out of DR continuity. At the same time, the Power8 platform was end-of-life and supported only under expensive 3-month IBM maintenance extensions.

This combination of technical debt, escalating support costs, and an unreliable DR posture prompted an urgent search for a cloud-based alternative.

GlassHouse Systems was engaged to design and implement a secure, two-region IBM Cloud PowerVS solution. The client's production workloads—an IBM i-based ERP system and a Domino server—will be migrated to IBM Cloud Dallas. A secondary environment in IBM Cloud Washington will serve as the DR site, leveraging IBM Global Replication Services (GRS) for asynchronous cross-region replication.

The solution includes:

• Power10 virtual servers in both regions
• Fully configured FortiGate HA firewalls and VPNs for secure, redundant site-to-site communication
• FalconStor virtual tape libraries (VTLs) in both regions, configured with BRMS for automated backup and restore policies
• Upgrade of IBM i system security from Level 20 to Level 40
• Fully orchestrated DR test, including failover and reverse replication to validate recovery integrity

This initiative not only addresses the client’s infrastructure limitations but also transforms its DR model from passive and under-tested to proactive and verifiable. The solution enables consistent uptime, data protection, and simplified operations aligned with modern cloud standards.

Key drivers behind the opportunity included:

• Critical business risk due to unreliable failover with the incumbent DR provider 
• Cost exposure from legacy DR contracts and unsupported infrastructure
• Internal skill and resource gaps for managing IBM i systems at scale
• A strategic push to exit self-hosted facilities and transition into formal data center environments

GlassHouse Systems offered a comprehensive solution that replaced aging infrastructure with a cloud-native architecture. The result is a more resilient, testable, and cost-controlled IBM i environment. This use case demonstrates the importance of combining infrastructure modernization with operational readiness—and how a precise, risk-aware delivery model can transform the business continuity profile of mission-critical workloads.