Introducing Surgical Recovery for IBM z/OS with Dell® enterprise storage

March 24, 2023

Data is growing rapidly, much of it coming from the mainframe, which now generates 75% or more of enterprise data. Storing that data is a challenge. But recovering data—and recovering priority datasets with agility—is also becoming a key focus area for large enterprises.

For many enterprises, when an outage or recovery situation arises, local backups are used to perform a recovery of the necessary data. But local backups can be days or weeks old depending on frequency. It’s important that organizations can recover specific datasets to a point in time in order to restore more recent copies of data within minutes instead of the manual process, which can take hours or days, or doing a full volume restore.

Leveraging Dell enterprise storage with zDP enabled

There are several storage hardware options available for storing mainframe data, but many organizations rely on Dell storage hardware with Dell® z Data Protection (zDP) enabled. zDP gives organizations frequent recovery points at a dataset volume level or higher using snapshots of the data, which is extremely beneficial.

Even so, storage administrators have indicated a desire and need to use zDP snapshots for selective dataset recovery with more granular point-in-time options, helping them reduce recovery time and allow for more potential recovery points.

Surgically recover specific mainframe datasets

This is exactly why Rocket Software worked closely with Dell to develop Logical Data Recovery Manager, a capability integrated with Rocket Backup and Recovery Manager Suite. Backup and Recovery Manager Suite lets customers centralize backup and recovery of critical application data, including the ability to surgically restore data from tapes.

Logical Data Recovery Manager extends the value of Backup and Recovery Manager Suite by optionally enabling storage admins to perform granular, point-in-time recovery at the dataset level with Dell® zDP snapshots.

Without this ability organizations are left recovering large bulks of data that could be a day or more old. This requires more time and operating costs, as opposed to recovering specific datasets at a point-in-time, which greatly reduces the amount of recovery time required.

Logical Dataset Recovery Manager is an interface to Dell® zDP that accomplishes a function often referred to in the mainframe industry as “surgical recovery.” Logical Data Recovery Manager is customized for IBM z/OS operating systems with Dell® enterprise storage hardware. Logical Data Recovery Manager enhances z/OS local recovery capabilities leveraging zDP, significantly reducing recovery time and allowing more potential recovery points.

To learn more about Rocket Logical Data Recovery Manager, speak to an expert.