Creating long-term retention backups

The primary copy of each FDR/Upstream backup requires space in the “USTCATLG” and “USTFILEI” repository data sets. In particular, the “USTFILEI” cluster contains a record for every file that has been backed up.

Multiple records exist for files that have been backed up multiple times. If you are backing up large servers, or a great number of servers and workstations, this repository storage can be quite considerable (see space calculations in Section 6).

For this reason, most FDR/Upstream backups would be kept only for a limited period of time, perhaps for 1 month, or for a specific number of “versions”, before they are finally uncataloged and expired. This not only frees up the disk/tape media on which the backups reside, but it also allows the USTMAINT utility (Section 20) to release the space taken up by the related control records in the FDR/Upstream repository data sets.

However, if you need to keep certain backups for an extended period of time, for example to allow for long-term recovery or for legal reasons, you can do this with USTVAULT without requiring the additional space in the FDR/Upstream repository.

As previously described, USTVAULT can create vault copies of your backups with differing names (i.e. different copy numbers). Thus, you can run a special USTVAULT execution whenever required, which will utilize a different USTVLTxx profile from the norm. This special USTVLTxx profile will provide different (i.e. longer) retention periods for those long-term backup copies.

A console command to initiate a special “long-term” USTVAULT might look like this:

The COPY=4 will cause USTVAULT to replace the “?” with a “4” in the vaulted filenames. The NOVCHK option allows USTVAULT to create the long-term vaulted copies for backups that already have other vaulted copies.

This process works best if the TAPEPREF prefix names in the USTVLTxx profile are GDGs, so that you can build the GDG bases with the proper number of generations to keep the number of versions you need. For example, 12 generations of a quarterly backup will be kept for 3 years. Tape management catalog control (EXPDT=99000) could then be used to retain and eventually expire the backups.