Specifying the day on which a dump occurs

The DUMPCYCLE parameter of the DEFINE command specifies when the host does dump processing. You can also specify the day to start the cycle so that the cycle does not change with each reinitialization of DFSMShsm. In the example system, the following command is added to the ARCCMDxx member in each host:

DEFINE DUMPCYCLE(NNNNNNYNNNNNNYNNNNNNYNNNNNNY -
CYCLESTARTDATE(06/01/03))

The command establishes a 28-day cycle that begins on a Monday. Automatic dump processing occurs on Sunday. DFSMShsm uses the dump cycle to determine the days on which automatic dump occurs. DFSMShsm performs automatic dump only on days designated with a Y in the dump cycle. The dump cycle that you define applies to all dump classes that you define. Thus, the preceding example dump cycle applies to all of the dump classes that are defined in the following examples.

DFSMShsm stores the date you specify with CYCLESTARTDATE as the date the dump cycle began. If you do not specify a CYCLESTARTDATE parameter with the DEFINE command but a cycle start date is already stored and the dump cycle length has not changed, DFSMShsm uses the cycle start date that is already stored. If no cycle start date is stored and you do not specify one, DFSMShsm uses the day that the DEFINE DUMPCYCLE command is issued as the cycle start date.

Rule: The date that is specified for the cycle start date cannot be a date in the future. The date must always fall on or before the date that the DEFINE command is issued.

Note:

When you redefine the dump class, be careful if you use the DAY parameter to define the days that a given dump class is active. The day that is specified with the DAY parameter should be a Y day in the DUMPCYCLE. If the day that is specified is an N day in the DUMPCYCLE, automatic dump processing does not target the dump class.
Dump cleanups run on N days in the dump cycle. Cleanup functions include expiration of expired dump copies and deletion of excess dump VTOC copy data sets.