Full system save with IBM's Advanced Job Scheduler

Does IBM's Advanced Job Scheduler allow one to schedule a full system backup on specific dates? If so, how would this be accomplished?
Yes. There are two ways to do this in V5R3.xc

First of all, here is the Control Group I use to do a full system save: 

 
                 Display Backup Control Group Entries              S17
                                                                      
roup . . . . . . . . . . : MONTHENDBU                                 
efault activity  . . . . : *BKUPCY                                    
ext  . . . . . . . . . . : M/E System Backup + IPL                    
                                                                      
                       Auxiliary   Weekly    Retain  Save      SWA    
     Backup      List  Storage     Activity  Object  While     Message
eq   Items       Type  Pool Device SMTWTFS   Detail  Active    Queue  
 10  *EXIT                         *                                  
 20  *SAVSYS                       FFFFFFF                            
 30  *IBM                          FFFFFFF   *YES    *NO              
 40  *ALLUSR           *SYSBAS     FFFFFFF   *YES    *NO              
 50  *ALLDLO                       FFFFFFF   *YES    *NO              
 60  *EXIT                         *******                            
 70  *EXIT                         **

Note: I save the IFS via another control group. You could include it in here if you wished though.

The first method is to submit the backup process to the "console". To do this the following command is scheduled via the job scheduler. It has been defined to execute on the last Sunday of the month at 5 p.m.

STRBKUBRM CTLGRP(MONTHENDBU) SBMJOB(*CONSOLE)

Prior to leaving Friday evening, I make sure the BRMS Console Monitor process is started on the system console. You do this by taking Option 20 from the GO BRMS main menu. I prefer to do it this way because our console is in a secure physical location and if any problems are encountered messages will be sent to it.

Another way to submit this control group would be to schedule a command like this:

STRBKUBRM CTLGRP(MONTHENDBU) SBMJOB(*CTLSBS)

This will result in the BU process being submitted directly to the controlling subsystem. When the system is taken into a restrictive state for the SAVSYS process the system console job will be ended. Here is IBM's warning on using this method:

Note: If the control group requires all subsystems to be ended, this special value should only be used if the backup can complete without operator intervention because the interactive system console job is ended and will not be available.

If the control group requires all subsystems to be ended, system reference code A900 3C70 is displayed while the system is in restricted state. Unresponsive restricted state backups can be ended and the interactive system console job restarted in two ways:

1. Start DST from the control panel, sign on to DST, select option 14 - End batch restricted state.

2. Specify a value for Maximum time for backup on the System Policy which is large enough to allow the backup job to complete but small enough to end the backup job if the controlling subsystem has not been restarted in the specified time.

This was first published in December 2005

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