General policy definitions
Scheduling a policy to run automatically is performed on the “Schedule” tab, enabling selection of daily, weekly, monthly or yearly scheduling:

Each policy type supports additional options. The following is a description of the options that are supported by more than one policy. Policy-specific options are described in the section describing that policy.
# of generations
This option is available for policies that create multiple backups of data sets or full volume dumps. It is available for policies defined without checking the “Use SMS policy” checkbox, by setting the number of generations that will be managed and kept in object storage, regardless of SMS attributes.
Use SMS policy
When checking this checkbox, the policy selects and processes only SMS-managed data sets and volumes, according to SMS attribute "# of generations".
When not checking this option, the policy selects all data sets and volumes according to the policy selection criteria, and processes them according to options set by the user in the policy definition. The default is not to use SMS policy.
Period/Retention
When specifying retention, the resources created by the policy will be candidates for deletion by the lifecycle management process, according to the user specified retention period or date. Retention is supported by only some of the policies types, and is available when disabling the "use SMS policy" option.
Incremental backup
The policy will only backup data sets that have changed since the last backup. The policy determines whether a data set has been changed by examining the change bit. Incremental backup is the default behavior.
Compression
The compression to be used for the policy should be chosen according to the available components in the system. Some policies do not support all the compression types. The available compression types are:
Type | Description |
Lz4 | Most suitable where zIIP / zAAP processors are available. This type usually achieves a good compression ratio and is lightweight in its zIIP / zAAP consumption. |
Gzip | Suitable for both zIIP / zAAP and zEDC, when zEDC is available and defined in the agent. See the Installation Guide for more details. |
DFDSS-gzip | Suitable for zEDC only. zEDC should be available and defined in the agent in order to use this compression type, see the Installation Guide for more details. Note that scheduling the IO on the zEDC compression card consumes more GCP. This compression generates the best throughput but it does not utilize zIIP engines. This compression type is not available for "Data Set Import" policies. |
DFDSS-compress | Most suitable where zIIP / zAAP / zEDC are not available, it achieves a medium compression ratio and consumes GCP. This compression type is not available for "Data Set Import" policies. |
When the policy is running, resources that are included in the policy selection criteria become candidates for processing. The selection criteria is defined by either a data set name pattern, volume name pattern, SMS storage group name pattern, or z/OS UNIX file name pattern. For detailed explanation of pattern rules, click the question mark (?) icon next to “Specify pattern(s)” field header.

To exclude resources from the selection criteria, use the filter criteria. The filter criteria defines an additional set of rules that the candidate resource must fulfill in order to be eligible for processing by the policy.

For example, the selection criteria above includes all data set names that begin with
SYS2.*
, excludes data sets that have an SYS2.*.OLD
suffix.Certain policies have additional restrictions on the type of resources that can be selected for processing, see the section describing each policy for more details.
Allows filtering in/out data sets either by explicit name or by patterns using wild cards.
Allows filtering in/out data sets/volumes either by explicit name or by patterns using wild cards.
Allows filtering in/out data sets/volumes/storage groups either by explicit name or by patterns using wild cards.
Allows filtering in/out data sets if they are type ZFS.
Allows filtering out data sets by their organization grouped into the following types:
Sequential - Including all sequential organization data sets
Partitioned - Including partitioned data sets (PDS) or partitioned data set extended (PDSE)
VSAM - Including all VSAM organization data sets
To save the new policy, click Finish.
Last modified 4mo ago