FDRAPPL Backup Job Control Requirements

The following Job Control Statements are required to perform FDRAPPL backups.

STEPLIB or JOBLIB DD statement

If FDR is not in the system link list (LNKLST), specifies the program library where FDRABR resides. The library must be APF authorized.

EXEC statement

Specifies the program name (PGM=FDRABR), region requirement (REGION=, see FDRAPPL Processing Options and Requirements), and optional PARM= operand.

If a PARM= field is specified, ABR uses data specified as the first control statement, which must be a valid DUMP statement; if the PARM= data contains a slash “/”, the data after the slash is used as the second control statement (usually a SELECT). For example,

If FDRABR is invoked from a user program, Register 1 must follow IBM's convention for passing data from the PARM= field.

ARCHIVE DD statement

Specifies the Application Control File in which all data sets dumped by this FDRAPPL step are recorded.

It may reference a permanent Application Control File (unique for each application) in which case entries are accumulated from multiple FDRAPPL runs. Specify DISP=SHR since FDRAPPL internally serializes access. For example,

If the ARCHIVE DD statement references a new data set, FDRAPPL formats it as data sets are recorded in it. Since each track of the control file can record the backups of several hundred data sets, a few tracks are usually all that is required. For example,

If ARCBACKUP=DSF is specified or defaulted, and ARCB1DSN (and ARCB2DSN, if applicable) are not specified, then the data set name of the Control File must include the index level “ARCHIVE”; it is replaced by ARCBKUP and ARCBKU2 to create the name of the backup files containing the Application Control File.

For SIMULATION runs, this DD statement is not required.

FDREMAIL DD statement

Specifies input control statements for the FDR e-mail facility. If present, e-mail messages can be sent for unsuccessful or successful FDR operations. See FDR-E-mail-notification-facility for requirements and details.

SYSIN DD statement

Specifies a data set containing the control statements for FDRAPPL. Usually a DD * data set. It is required, but if control statements were provided on the EXEC statement by PARM=, it can be DUMMY.

SYSPRINT DD statement

Specifies the primary output message data set; it is required. It is usually a SYSOUT data set but if it is assigned to a data set on tape or DASD, this DD statement must specify DISP=MOD. DCB characteristics are RECFM=FBA and LRECL=121; the blocksize defaults to 1210 on DASD or tape.

SYSPRINx DD statement

Specifies the secondary output data set for messages related to the matching TAPEx DD statement. A SYSPRINx is required for each TAPEx present in the step. See notes on SYSPRINT DD Statement.

SYSUDUMP DD statement

Specifies the abend dump data set. Usually specifies a SYSOUT data set. Although not required, we strongly urge you to always include this DD statement, so that we can help you diagnose error conditions. If you have a debugging aid product on your system that would prevent the desired dump, please add the appropriate one of these statements to the JCL so that a fully-formatted dump is produced.

TAPE1 DD statement

Specifies the COPY1 backup tape to be used for FDRAPPL. If data sets from multiple DASD volumes are dumped, FDRAPPL creates multiple files on the tape (or tape aggregate if more than one tape volume is used), one file for each DASD volume.

Usually only TAPE1 is required for FDRAPPL, and FDRAPPL processes DASD volumes one at a time. If a large amount of data from multiple DASD volumes is to be dumped, you may specify additional TAPEx DD statements and FDRAPPL processes up to 9 DASD volumes in parallel (however, region size limitations may limit the number of concurrent subtasks; see Memory Requirements in Processing-Options-and-Requirements). There must be a SYSPRINx DD statement and optionally a TAPExx DD statement matching each TAPEx DD statement. Do not specify DSNENQ= if multi-volume data sets might be involved.

On each TAPEx DD statement you should specify:

A data set name is required by z/OS, but it is overridden by FDRAPPL at OPEN time, so any non-temporary name is acceptable. The name you specify is not used by FDRAPPL, but z/OS does an exclusive enqueue on this name at job initiation so each FDRAPPL job should use unique names.

Specify a generic (for example, 3590) or esoteric (for example, CART) name to allocate the type of tape drive desired.

Specify a volume count, for example, VOL=(,,,255), to prevent FDRAPPL from abending if more than 5 tape volumes are required. If high-capacity cartridges are used, VOL= can be omitted. Do not use VOL=REF= to refer-back to a previous FDRAPPL step; use the LAST TAPE option (described in LAST TAPE Option in Volume-DUMP-Job-Control-Requirements) to add files to a tape.

You may want to specify RETPD= or EXPDT= to identify the expiration date of the backups. See Backup Retention and Tape Management in FDRAPPL-introduction for details on retention of FDRAPPL backups.

is required. Do not specify CATLG since FDRAPPL handles cataloging of output files internally.

Do not specify FREE=CLOSE since it causes ABR to fail when it tries to create a second file on the tape.

Example:

If multiple DASD volumes are dumped to a given TAPEx DD statement, FDRAPPL creates multiple files on the tape (or tape aggregate if more than one tape volume is used), one file for each DASD volume, using the naming convention in Tape Format and Naming Conventions in FDRAPPL-introduction. If a tape volume is filled, FDRAPPL mounts a new tape, creating a multi-volume, multi-file tape aggregate.

DCB parameters are not required and should be omitted. However, tape unit hardware compaction (sometimes called IDRC, available on most tape cartridge drives) can be requested by adding DCB=TRTCH=COMP to your DD statement; tape hardware compaction may be the default depending on local z/OS options.

DASD output

FDRAPPL output is normally directed to tape, but it is possible to direct it to DASD volumes instead. Please see DASD Output Archive-and-Superscratch-Job-Control-Requirements for details on the JCL required. Also, see Managing-the-Application-Control-File for notes on DASD output.

For DUMP operations to cloud storage

You may request that ABR create Application backups in the cloud. This is appropriate when the backups have a long retention and will probably not need to be restored.

Simulation

If simulation of backups is requested by the SIM statement, you must specify:

TAPE11 DD statement

This optional DD specifies that FDRAPPL is to create a duplicate backup tape called COPY2. This copy can be sent off site for disaster recovery. TAPE11 does not increase the REGION requirements. For example,

produces a tape that is a duplicate of the backups on the TAPE1 DD shown above. The copy number in the data set names created is “2” (see Tape Format and Naming Conventions in FDRAPPL-introduction).

FDRAPPL reads the DASD volume once and write the same data to TAPE1 and TAPE11 concurrently. These are known to FDRAPPL as COPY1 (TAPE1) and COPY2 (TAPE11).

TAPE11 must be omitted for backups to cloud storage.