Replacement for old SASSBK00

[Steven Francis]

We recently upgraded to CA7 R12 and I have discovered there was a job that
ran an old PROC CA7BKUP that invoked SASSBK00. I know that program is no
longer valid.

What have others done to replace this old process when going from an 11.x
to 12.0 release?


Steve Francis
z/OS Systems
678-283-8655 Mobile
[e-mail]

IBM Services

[JOHN WRIGHT]

Hi Steve

We execute two types of backup; a "Hot" backup - CAL2JCL(AL2DBHOT) - and an "Export" - CAL2JCL(AL2DBEI). Both can be done with CA-7 up and running.

If something catastrophic happens and you lose or corrupt the database you can use the Hot backup to restore the database, to the point the backup was taken, and you can then use the Forward Recovery process - CAL2JCL(AL2DBREC) - to restore to a point in time using the Datacom logs.  

We use the Exported database to restore our prod databases to test versions, they all live under one Datacom in our test environment so it's easier to Import than use a Hot backup restore.  In fact I haven't found a way to restore to a single logical DB using a Hot backup dataset in a Datacom that contains multiple logical DBs.

[Steven Francis]

Thanks.  I'll have some other folks figure out what the other "stuff" in the old backup was, as there was an IDMS pgm I believe that processed some JPFILE from the backup step, and a SAS step as well .  More than likely these would probably need to be converted to some datacom query.  At least it's getting backed up now.

So how often do you run the DEFRAG  (AL2DBFRG),  weekly, monthly, ?

[JOHN WRIGHT]

We run a defrag once a month, but to be honest there wasn't a lot of analysis behind that decision.  We see a 1.5% - 2% total deletion each month in our busiest Datacom so we could probably change that to quarterly. We've replaced a lot of our SAS VSAM DB queries with Datacom SQL, the data is presented in a different format so the back-end processing needed to be modified as well, but we've had no issues.

[RenateLynn Edwards]

John,
We found out this week that we were NOT running any backup beyond our weekly backup of the entire mainframe file system.   I've been reading up and from what I have read it looks like AL2DBKUP  assumes that CA7 is NOT running.  You say both of the types of backup can be done with CA7 running..  Can I please have a clarification from you or anyone else on a job that would backup a system for me to run some database transportability jobs.   Is AL2DBKUP the best one for me to run with and if so can I do it with CA7 up or down.   

Depending on the answer of that question, I have more questions but I don't want to ask them yet because they really depend on if CA7 is up or down for the backup.  Thanks in advance for anyone's help.


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RenateLynn Edwards
Workload Automation Administrator CA7/CA11/CA1
Security Service Federal Credit Union
Texas
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[Don Johnson]

Good morning, Renate!

In order for anyone to give you a good answer on your backup plans, the main question is, "For what will you use the backup files you create?" 

We have backup functions that run with the MUF/CA7 up or down, backups that are "dirty" or "steady state", and some that will run very quickly (think of 200 Million records backed up in 3-4 minutes). These backups can be used for disaster recovery (onsite or offsite), for copying to a test system, for offsite retention, or for use in other-platform database tools, and I am sure there could be other uses.

When we know what you want to do with the backups, we can give you the best fit for your needs.

Don Johnson
Principal Support Engineer  | SD - CA Datacom product family

CADRE/CA Datacom Community Champion
Broadcom
office: 609.493.5891  | mobile: [phone]

[e-mail]   | broadcom.com

  

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[RenateLynn Edwards]

1.  I need to run database transportability jobs.   We had some major changes and ran them up D4*, U4*, QA, then PROD.  I now need those changes in d2,d3,u1,u2,u3 and so I'm planning on making a copy of QA and changing names to do those regions.  BUT I want a good backup before I do each because I did once (long time ago) screw up a region and I want to make sure I can back out of one of these if I need to.

2.  For best practices, do we need to do any back up of CA7 database other than what we do now with out backup of all the whole thing (which is what we have used at disaster testing before).

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RenateLynn Edwards
Workload Automation Administrator CA7/CA11/CA1
Security Service Federal Credit Union
Texas
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[Roderick Woods]

Hi Renate,

For what you doing, I recommend you run the hot backup (AL2DBHOT) and this can be ran with CA 7 up. As a best practice you want to run the hot backupat job on a regular basis, just a much as you ran the SASSBK00 backup in 11.3. You can run the the hot backup daily and even multiple times a day. In production environment, I would definitely run the hot backup at least once a day.

The stable backup (AL2DBKUP) must run with CA 7 down. I recommend doing this type backup when you are doing major maintenance or moving files... things of that nature.

[RenateLynn Edwards]

Thanks @Roderick Woods  I knew I would get the answers I needed here.  ​

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RenateLynn Edwards
Workload Automation Administrator CA7/CA11/CA1
Security Service Federal Credit Union
Texas
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[RenateLynn Edwards]

one more quick question.  when I went searching for answers and found this thread, one of the posts talks about defraging.   Is that something we should be doing?

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RenateLynn Edwards
Workload Automation Administrator CA7/CA11/CA1
Security Service Federal Credit Union
Texas
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[Don Johnson]

Hi Renate. Whenever you delete data records from a table, the corresponding index records are also deleted. Over time, depending on how the data is organized, these empty index slots (which are dead space) may not be marked for re-use, and can actually take up a lot of the space within the index itself. The DEFRAG function of DBUTLTY will start at the beginning of the index and will look at each block and the "next" block to see if the dead space can be removed, and if the current entries can be consolidated into a more compact amount of space.

For some CA 11 sites, I have seen an index that was 90% full on the CXX report be condensed down to 10% or less by running a DEFRAG.

Since the DEFRAG can run while the application database is up and active, and since this function is nearly imperceptible, I believe that you should certainly use this in your systems.

For your CA 11 application, you are probably running the MANT utility to help keep your database clean by removing older entries. I would recommend that you schedule a DEFRAG of that database (probably 601) every weekend, at some time after the MANT process is finished, and during a time of light activity. For CA 7, I don't know if you have any regularly scheduled activity that deletes a significant number of records, but I would also schedule the DEFRAG for that database, either following a large delete process, or also during a time of light application activity.

The JCL is quite simple for this - here is a sample for CA 11 that you can also modify for use with CA 7:
//*
// JCLLIB ORDER=<<YOUR DATACOM CUSPROC
//*
//DEFRAG EXEC PGM=DBUTLTY,REGION=4M
//            INCLUDE MEMBER=B15STLIB
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSIN DD *
COMM DBID=601,OPTION=STATS
REPORT DBID=601,AREA=CXX,TYPE=A
DEFRAG DBID=601
COMM DBID=601,OPTION=STATS
REPORT DBID=601,AREA=CXX,TYPE=A
REPORT DBID=601,AREA=CXX
/*

Let me know if you have any other questions.
Don Johnson<gdiv></gdiv>

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Principal Support Engineer
Broadcom
United States
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