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Creating a new policy
To create a new policy, click the “CREATE POLICY” button on the top right. The “CREATE A NEW POLICY” page appears:
Enter the required input as shown in the example above:
Field | Description |
Name | Select a name for the policy. If you plan to use the M9SAPI JCL interface for running policies from the mainframe, refer to Running M9SAPI to execute the policy for naming considerations. |
Description | Optional |
Execution type | Indicate the z/OS environment on which this policy runs, either an agent or an agent group. The agent must be pre-defined to the management server, see Defining a new agent for more details. Assigning an agent means this policy will be executed on the LPAR in which the agent is active. Agent grouping allows you to span work across several agents, see Using agent group for sysplex support and load balancing for more details. |
Status | When ENABLED, the policy can be run automatically or manually. When DISABLED, the policy can be run manually only. Before deleting a policy, it must be set to a DISABLED status. |
To define a policy to backup data sets, select DATA SET BACKUP in the “Type” field.
Dataset backup Options tab
For a description of the “Use SMS policy”, “Incremental backup”, “Compression”, "# of generations" and "period" options, refer to Policy options.
Reset change bit: When checking this checkbox, the policy will reset the change bit after backing up the data set. The checkbox is checked by default.
Retention method: Specifies the retention method for backups done by this data set backup policy.
Concurrent copy: Specifies the concurrent copy option to be used during the data set backup processing.
Policy-specific filters considerations
During the activity, the policy uses the filters and policy options to select resources, excluding:
- Temporary data sets
- ALIASes
- VTOC Indexes and VVDSs
When backing up ZFS data sets that are mounted in R/W mode, the agent quiesces the file system data set for the duration of the backup in order to create a consistent copy. Applications that try to access that file system while it is quiesced will hang for the duration of the backup.
Choose one of the following options to back up your ZFS:
Option | Description |
ZFS quiesce | If the ZFS quiesce is acceptable during a specific time window, schedule the ZFS backup to that window |
Mount the file system in R/O mode | If the ZFS quiesce is not acceptable, consider remounting the file system in R/O mode if possible. |
Schedule a UNIX FILES BACKUP | If you cannot change the file system to R/O mode, schedule a UNIX FILES BACKUP for that ZFS instead of a DATA SET BACKUP. |
Use the ZFS filter to exclude all or include only ZFS data sets in the policy:
A common use case is creating 2 policies selecting the same data set name pattern, where the difference is in the ZFS filter. One policy excludes the ZFS data sets, to be run during the week when ZFS data sets are in use. The other policy includes only the ZFS data sets, to be run during the weekend when the ZFS data sets are not in use.
- When using a Concurrent copy value other than "NONE" with the "Reset change bit" checked, by default, the reset operation will be ignored by the DFDSS data mover and the backup process will not reset the data-set-changed indicator.
- To enable the DFDSS data mover capability to reset the change bit indicator with concurrent copy contact Model9 support.
- When the "Use SMS policy" checkbox is checked the concurrent copy will not be used and the SMS management class settings will determine generation settings.
- Using concurrent copy might increase the Model9 agent's General CPU (GCP) consumption.
- The concurrent copy is being performed at the dataset level and not for several datasets at once.
- The enqueue for each resource processed using concurrent copy will be released as soon as the concurrent copy operation is completed and not when the backup is complete.
- Using concurrent copy can increase the memory usage of the ANTMAIN address space. See the "Determining concurrent copy resource needs" topic in the IBM documentation for more information.
To define a policy for full-volume dumps, select FULL DUMP in the “Type” field
Full dump Options tab
Is z/VM CP Volume: Check this checkbox to have the policy perform a dump of z/VM CP volumes only. A policy can process either z/OS volumes or z/VM CP volumes.
Concurrent copy: Specifies the concurrent copy option to be used during the full volume dump processing.
For a description of how to use the “Filters” tab to select resources for processing, refer to Filters.
For volumes with a conditional name assigned, both the original name and the conditional name will be presented when these volumes are processed. For example:
Processing for BR5988 (original name: STRA01) ended - status: Ended OKTo define a policy for z/OS UNIX files backup, select UNIX FILE BACKUP in the “Type” field.
Follow symbolic links
Check this checkbox to backup directories and files referenced by symbolic links. Symbolic links are commonly used to redirect access from one directory to another. By default, the checkbox is not checked to avoid backing up additional directories that the user might not intend to backup.
For a description of how to use the “Filters” tab to select resources for processing, refer to Filters.
To define a policy for data set archiving (migrating data sets from disk in order to free disk space), select DATA SET ARCHIVE in the “Type” field.
Primary days non-usage
This option is not available when the “Use SMS policy” is checked. When it is available, it applies to all data sets, overwriting SMS attributes of SMS-managed data sets.
Verify backup existence
This dropdown menu contains three options:
- Always require backup (default) When selected Model9 ensures that only data sets with a current backup copy will be archived. The data set will not be archived if:
- The data set’s change bit is on, meaning it has changed since the last backup.
- The data set’s change bit is off, but there is no backup copy in the system.
The policy will archive the data set only if the change bit is off, and there is a valid backup copy. The policy does not check whether the backup copy is the most current one, and there is no protection from manually deleting a backup of an archived data set. - Never require backup When selected Model9 doesn't verify that a current backup copy exists in the object storage and overrides any other backup verification setting.
- According to SMS When selected the Use SMS policy must be checked as well. Model9 verifies that a current copy exists according to the SMS storage group or management class settings. When the
AUTO BACKUPsetting is set toNOcurrent backup verification is skipped.
Override retention
Allows overriding the retention period that will be set for all archives done by this policy. The following override retention options are available:
- Forever: Archives created by the policy will be created as PERM archives with no expiration date.
- Period: Archives created by the policy will be created with a retention period calculated from the policy's run date. Available options are DAYS/WEEKS/MONTHS/YEARS.
- Date: Archives created by the policy will be created with an explicit expiration date. Once the specified date is passed, the policy will no longer be able run.
For a description of how to use the “Filters” tab to select resources for processing, refer to Filters.
Policy-specific filtering considerations
During an activity run, the policy uses the defined filters and policy options to select resources, excluding the following:
- Non-SMS managed data sets with unmovable or absolute DSORG
- Non-SMS managed multi-volume data sets
- Catalogs
- Temporary data sets
- Data sets using symbols to specify a VOLSER (Indirect Volume Serial Support)
- All uncataloged data sets including VTOC Indexes
SYS1.**data sets including VVDSs- Generation Data Sets that are either without a catalog entry, non-SMS managed, non-active, or whose GDG base is defined with NOSCRATCH
- ALIASes
The catalog entry of the archived data set is not SMS-managed.
The “Data Set Import'' policy copies cataloged data sets from tape to object storage. The copy is identical to the original data set on tape and it is not cataloged in z/OS. Importing the same data set again will create an additional copy in the object storage. Each copy can be identified by the date and time of the import, or by a unique ID.
Limiting the number of parallel tape mounts used by the policy
The “Data Set Import” policy requires tape mounts for reading the data sets from tape. The default is 3 mounts per agent; to set the maximum tape mounts allowed in parallel to a different number, change the parameter in the server configuration file:
model9.parallelism.tapeMounts.numberOfThreads:
When using an agent group, each agent in the group will use up to the number specified.
None.
For a description of how to use the “Filters” tab to select resources for processing, refer to Filters.
Policy-specific filters considerations
The “Data Set Import” policy supports cataloged data sets that reside on tapes only. Data sets that do not reside on tapes will be automatically excluded. The resources can be defined using the “Data Set Name” selection criteria, and can be further filtered by either a “Data Set Name” or a “Volume Name” filter.
The “Data Set Cleanup'' policy will remove all SMS expired data sets that their expiration date was met either by the management class settings or by the catalog entry. Each policy run will generate a log reporting all the data sets that were removed as part of each run.
Data sets created before the year 2000 will not be removed by the Data set cleanup policy
For a description of how to use the “Filters” tab to select resources for processing, refer to Filters.
Policy-specific filters considerations
The "Data Set Cleanup" policy only supports adding resources by Storage Group or Volume name (Wild cards and multiple values separated by commas are accepted). Filtering can be done by "Data Set Name", "Volume Name" or "Storage Group Name".
Last modified 5mo ago