FDRAPPL Processing Options and Requirements

FDRAPPL operations

The first control statement in the FDRAPPL input must be a DUMP or RESTORE statement. It may be followed by SELECT and optionally EXCLUDE statements to specify data sets that must be backed up. FDRAPPL accepts up to 100 SELECT/EXCLUDE statements in a single execution, unless that limit is overridden by MAXCARDS=. 

Important

If a SELECT CATDSN= is translated into an internally-generated SELECT for each data set selected from the system catalogs, so you may need to specify a large MAXCARDS= value if many data sets are selected from the catalog.

FDRAPPL options

The DUMP statement contains a TYPE=APPL operand to request FDRAPPL.

Important

Prior to ABR V5.2, DUMP TYPE=ARC,SCRATCH=NO was used to invoke Application Backup. You may have existing job streams using SCRATCH=NO that will work. However TYPE=APPL invokes some special options for Application Backup and is recommended. SCRATCH=NO may not work exactly as described in this section. We recommend that you convert all TYPE=ARC,SCRATCH=NO steps to TYPE=APPL.

If the FDRAPPL step JCL contains a single TAPEx DD statement, FDRAPPL will select the first DASD volume on its list and backup all selected data sets on that volume, creating file 1 on that output tape. When complete, it selects the next volume and creates file 2 on the tape, and so on, until all volumes are processed.

However, you may have up to nine TAPEx DD statements in the Archive step. If you have more than one, FDRAPPL will select the first “n” volumes on its list and assign them to the “n” tape drives, executing the backups in parallel with internal sub-tasking, and creating file 1 on each output tape. As each backup completes, FDRAPPL selects the next DASD volume and assigns it to the tape that just became idle, creating the next file number on that tape. Remember that the backup of the Application Control File is placed only on the end of the last TAPEx that was active; this may cause problems if you are depending on that backup being on the tape for tape management catalog control (see “Backup Retention and Tape Management” in Introduction-to-FDRAPPL). See “Memory Requirements” in Processing-Options-and-Requirements for limitations on the use of multiple TAPEx DD statements.

Memory requirements

FDRAPPL has the same memory requirements as ABR. See “Memory Requirements” in Processing-Options-and-Requirements.

COMPRESS option

FDRAPPL can be instructed to compress the data on the sequential backup file using BMC's own proprietary software compression algorithm. The COMPRESS option should only be used: (1) for backups to DASD, (2) when the ZEDC=YES is specified, or (3) when using FDRCRYPT.

Important

All FDR restores will automatically recognize a compressed backup file and decompress it. No special option is required to restore a compressed backup.

Duplicate Tape Option

FDRAPPL has an option to create a duplicate or second copy of the backup tape during dump processing. The primary copy is called COPY1 and the duplicate is called COPY2. The copy number becomes part of the name of the backup data set as described in “Tape Format and Naming Conventions” in Overview-of-FDRABR-Volume-Backups.

While dumping a DASD volume to a TAPEx DD statement, the duplicate backup is written to the TAPExx DD statement (same “x” value twice) if it is present. You may have TAPExx DD statements for some TAPEx DD statements and not for others in the same step but this is not recommended with FDRAPPL since you cannot predict which DASD volumes are written to which tapes.

Memory requirements do not increase with the use of the duplicate tape option.

E-mail notification

FDR has the ability to send e-mail messages indicating the failure (or optionally the success) of FDR operations. This is invoked by the presence of the FDREMAIL DD statement in the FDR step, pointing to e-mail specification statements. E-mails may also be sent to text-enabled pagers and cell phones. E-mail statements and the instructions for enabling FDR e-mail are in  FDR-E-mail-Notification-Facility.

Security

Complete details on the security options of the FDR system are found in Security.

Warning

By default, no security checks are done for FDR operations, with the exception of a few checks done by operating system components. In general, there is no security for FDR operations unless the security administrator creates an FDR.NOALLCALL security profile, or you enable FDR security checking via the ALLCALL option in the FDR Global Options as described in Security-Options.

For FDRAPPL, ALLCALL results in these security checks:

  • For Application Backup (DUMP TYPE=APPL), ABR checks to see if your user ID has at least READ authority to the entire input volume; under IBM RACF this means that you are authorized to the input volume serial under the DASDVOL security class (other security systems have similar ways of defining volume authority). If you do have this volume authority, no additional checks are done on that input volume. If you do not have volume authority or the input volume is not protected by your security system, then ABR checks if you have at least READ authority under the DATASET security class to every data set selected from the input volume. Any data sets to which you are not authorized are bypassed with an error message. Since Application Backups are run under a security user ID belonging to an application, the DATASET security checks are normally used.
  • For data set restores (RESTORE TYPE=APPL), ABR checks if you have at least UPDATE authority under the DATASET security class to every data set restored. Any data sets to which you are not authorized are bypassed with an error message. If an output data set must be allocated, the operating system checks if you have CREATE/ALLOCATE authority for the data set (this is done even if ALLCALL is not in effect). The user may need READ authority to the Archive Backup files on tape or DASD (even if ALLCALL is not in effect).

Data set enqueue option

You can request, via the DSNENQ= operand, that each data set being backed up or restored be tested to see if it is in use. A data set is considered in use if any job or TSO user has a DD statement or dynamic allocation for that data set name.

In-use data sets are tested by doing an exclusive enqueue with a major name of SYSDSN and a minor name of the data set name itself, for each selected data set found in the VTOC of the input DASD volume. This resource is enqueued by any other task allocating the data set so our enqueue fails if it is in use.

Important

FDR cannot tell if the data set is being used for input or output. It also cannot tell what volume an active data set is on, so FDR thinks a data set on one volume is active even if a data set by the same name on another volume is really the active one; these are z/OS limitations.

Optionally, you can request that inactive data sets be enqueued to FDRAPPL during the backup or restore, to insure that no other job or TSO user can access the data set until FDRAPPL is done.

For backups, in-use data sets are still dumped by default, but you must be aware that the backups of data sets that are being updated during the backup may be unusable, depending on the nature and format of the data. If you wish to bypass the backup of active data sets during an Application Backup, specify the ENQERR=BYPASS operand.

For restores, FDRAPPL attempts to enqueue any data sets that it allocates on the output DASD volumes, to insure that no other task tries to use them until the restore is complete, but if the enqueue fails, the data set is still restored. However, for existing data sets, if the enqueue fails, the restore is bypassed.

The DSNENQ= operand has four possible values:

USE

Data sets are enqueued for the duration of the backup from this DASD volume or restore from this backup data set. For data sets that are active, an FDR158 warning message is issued and the data set is not enqueued. This is the most frequently used option. This is the default for TYPE=APPL restores.

TEST

Data sets are only tested to see if they are enqueued to another task at the time that the backup from this DASD volume or restore from this backup data set starts. For data sets that are active, an FDR158 warning message is issued. The data set is not enqueued and other tasks may enqueue it and possibly update it while the backup or restore is proceeding.

HAVE

The data sets are enqueued for the duration of the backup or restore. If a data set is in use, the z/OS operator must interact with FDRAPPL to decide how to proceed; a message FDRW27 is issued to the z/OS console, and the operator can respond:

WAIT

Wait for the data set to become available; if it is not eventually dequeued, the FDRAPPL job may time out, so the operator must know which data sets are in use by long-running jobs or tasks.

NOWAIT

Do not enqueue the data set. The FDR158 warning message is issued.

RETRY

Try the enqueue again. If it fails again, the FDRW27 message is reissued.

NONE

No data set enqueue is issued. This is the default for backups.

Important

If a data set name appears in a DD statement with DISP=SHR within the FDRAPPL job (not necessarily in the FDRAPPL step), and you specify DSNENQ=USE or TEST, FDRAPPL changes the scheduler enqueue for the data set to EXCLUSIVE (DISP=OLD). The data set may be unavailable to other tasks until the FDRAPPL job ends.

Important

The DSNENQ= option relies on a cross-system enqueue facility such as GRS or MIM where the SYSDSN QNAME is broadcast across systems. Without this capability, FDR can only determine what data sets are active on the system FDR is running.

Tip

Use DSNENQ= to prevent other tasks from updating or reading data sets being dumped or restored. However, users of FDRAPPL may be able to be sure that data sets may be safely backed up, especially if the application job stream is the only user of the data sets, so DSNENQ=NONE may be appropriate. Member ENQ in the FDR Installation Control Library (ICL) has more information on data set enqueues.

If HFS=QUIESCE or ZFS=QUIESCE is specified, special backup processing is done for Hierarchical File System (HFS) and zSeries File System (zFS) data sets, used by UNIX System Services (USS)). If the SYSDSN enqueue cannot be acquired, this may mean that the file system is mounted to UNIX, so FDR attempts to quiesce the file system during the backup. Details on the quiesce function are found in “Hierarchical File System (HFS)” in and “zSeries File System (zFS)” in FDR-Processing-by-Type-of-Data-Set.

Step termination

If no errors occur during the execution of FDRAPPL, the FDRAPPL job step will end with condition code 0 (zero).

If errors do occur, they are generally indicated by an error message; occasionally they are indicated only by a user abend (Uxxxx). Depending on the nature of the error, the step may end one of several ways:

  • Some errors are critical. The job step ends immediately with a user abend (Uxxxx).
  • Some errors are critical only to a particular operation. For example, during a backup, some errors cause the backup of a particular DASD to terminate immediately, but FDRAPPL may continue and attempt to backup other DASD volumes requested in the same step. A new tape is mounted on the drive associated with the failing backup, in case the failure was one that makes the tape unusable.
  • Some errors are non-critical and the messages are warnings only. FDRAPPL completes the current operation.

For the last two conditions above, a flag is set indicating that a non-terminating error occurred. At step termination, it tests the flag; if it is on, the step will terminate with return code 12 to call your attention to the errors. Remember that RC=12 indicates that some or all of the functions you requested did complete but you must examine the error messages to determine the impact of the errors.

If you prefer to get a different return code or a U0888 abend on a non-terminating error, the ABRCC option in the FDR Global Options can change it to a non-zero return code of your choice or abend (see ABR-Options).

Dynamic allocation

FDRAPPL dynamically allocates DASD volumes as needed. As long as the required volumes are online, FDRAPPL can dump from and restore to any required DASD volumes.

For restore operations, FDRAPPL dynamically allocates each required backup tape if the DYNTAPE option is specified. If required backups are on mixed device types (such as 3490Es and 3590s), FDRAPPL automatically mounts each tape on the proper device type. For an Automated Tape Library (ATL) or Virtual Tape System (VTS), a drive in the proper library is allocated. If you have multiple tape libraries or several types of drives that emulate the same type of IBM drive, you may need to enable the DYNDEALC option in the FDR Global Options (ISPF panel A.I.4.4, see ABR-Options).

For data set restores, FDRAPPL sorts the list of backup files required and mounts the backup tapes in an order that minimizes the amount of tape movement required.

 

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