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What's New in DASD Backup Supervisor 2.5

The following updates have been made to DASD Backup Supervisor version 2.5. Visit the Rocket DASD Backup Supervisor User's Guide for detailed information about using these features.

Advanced copy functions

DBS advanced copy functionality has been enhanced to include two additional selections for copy volumes that can improve the pairing of production devices to flash copy targets.

  • The first option ZPOOLED assigns flash copy targets based on device capacity (i.e., cylinder count) similar to the POOLED specification in PARMLIB(COPYVOLS), but it is not limited to either online or offline devices. Additionally, this new option checks eligibility of the target device before pairing it to a production device.

  • The second option FCMGR imports volume pairing information from IBM Flash Copy Manager.

New backup and restore statistics

New backup and restore statistics can now provide key information that can be used to improve product performance

Additional Features

RECLIP procedures

DBS RECLIP procedures have been improved to make the relabeling of disaster recovery data center volumes more dependable. During disaster recovery test setup an additional job will now be run to inventory a disaster recovery center’s volume IDs. The information from this job can be used to verify and itemize the volume IDS that have changed during the disaster recovery test.

DBSDB logging

DBS now allocates its generation data sets for DBSDB logging differently than was done in previous versions of DBS. The new method may affect you if you override file allocations in PARMLIB (DSNALLOC). DBS provides the DSBFIX CLIST that is accessible from the ISPF Upgrade panel to correct these overrides.

New PARMLIB member for VSAM files

Control statements in a new PARMLIB member, VSMALLOC, can now be used to override the DBS internal definition for its VSAM files. DBS has two product files that are VSAM: DBSDB and VOLCHAIN, both are supported by VSMALLOC

Changing DBSDB file sizes

DBS now provides a documented method for changing the DBSDB file size. The method requires that you add two new space parameters to VSMALLOC and run the Volume File Maintenance job (DBS001).

Cloning a new DBSDB

DBS now provides a documented method for cloning a new DBSDB. The method includes running the DBS Backup program (DBS013) to ensure that you have a current DBSDB backup. Running the Recovery DBSDB job (DBS014) using the current backup and running the Volume File Maintenance job (DBS001) job with new dynamic allocation prefixes to create product data sets that support the new DBSDB.

Improved runtime performance when working with SYSOUT archiving products

A new feature has been added to improve DBS runtime performance when data sets belonging to SYSOUT archiving products are encountered. Recording data set names with location information belonging to these products can be time consuming and is not absolutely necessary to recover those data sets at a disaster recovery site. You can now exclude recording this information by data set or by volume using the DATASET-BACKUP-RECORDING parameter.

CLIP processing

DBS can now correctly process DFLTVLST volumes that you do not want to restore but you do want to be labeled and available at the disaster recovery site.

Optional PDS/E PARMLIB

Sample JCL is now provided for converting DBS PARMLIB from a traditional PDS to a PDS/E. The sample JCL is included in the JCLLIB member PDSEPARM.

CLIP VSE volumes from Z/OS

DBS now can correctly process a VSE volume that is accessible to Z/OS for backup and restore purposes including if the VSE volume is part of an SMS storage group. VSE will always make the indexed VTOC unusable to which Z/OS will react by setting a flag indicating that no indexed VTOC exists. Formerly at disaster recovery, DBS would generate IBM volume initialization utility statements (ICKDSF) with STORAGEGROUP and NOINDEX; however, STORAGEGROUP and NOINDEX are mutually exclusive. Now DBS will only generate STORAGEGROUP.

Volume compression statistics

DBS now records additional statistics concerning tape hardware compression for DASD backups. The new compression percentages help DBS better forecast backup tape usage; thus, the functionality and applicability of the BACKUP-TAPEMAXIMUM- UTILIZATION-PERCENT parameter is improved.