Managing backups
The process and frequency of backups of recoverable VSAM files will vary based on your needs. You must establish the recover time element that is required to meet any service level agreements or contracts.
Through the Backup-While-Open function, RUV supports backup of a file while the file is open to a CICS region. This function provides a major benefit if you have a 24 by 7 CICS environment.
If the VSAM data set resides on a supported intelligent storage device, RUV can interact with the BMC Software SNAPSHOT UPGRADE FEATURE for VSAM component to create an Instant Snapshot copy of the data set. This process produces a duplicate of the data set in seconds, regardless of the size of the data set. This Instant Snapshot copy can also be restored in seconds.
When considering how often to back up a file, you should also review and understand the benefits of the RUV Batch Journaling Facility and its ability to back out VSAM updates. In many cases, RUV backout is faster and requires less processing time than running backup jobs between batch processing steps.
RUV performs prefixed and non-prefixed backups. A prefixed backup contains the sphere definition of a VSAM file. RUV uses this information during the restore of a file to rebuild the base cluster and any alternate indexes. For Backup-While-Open, RRDS, and ESDS files, RUV must use prefixed backups. RUV can use prefixed or non-prefixed backups of KSDS files.
RUV supports the use of external backups that are created by other vendor products. To automate the use of these backups, you must provide required information in a one-time definition process.
Creating an RUV backup involves determining which VSAM file or files to include for backup, building JCL with the correct space allocation, building the RUV command to specify the files to back up, and running the backup job. RUV can create multiple copies of the backup with a single pass.
If the backup files will be written to tape, you can consider stacking multiple backup files on the tape.
Backups are automatically registered in the repository, which provides RUV with the timestamp relationship that it needs to select the correct archive files during recovery.