Specifying whether to use concurrent copy

Concurrent copy is a system-managed backup process. DFSMS provides a BACKUP COPY TECHNIQUE attribute for the SMS management class that informs DFSMShsm whether to use the concurrent copy facility when backing up data sets during automatic, volume, or command data set backup processing. The BACKUP COPY TECHNIQUE attribute has seven parameters:

• CONCURRENT PREFERRED
• CONCURRENT REQUIRED
• STANDARD
• VIRTUAL PREFERRED
• VIRTUAL REQUIRED
• CACHE PREFERRED
• CACHE REQUIRED

These parameters function as follows:

• CONCURRENT PREFERRED (P) - specifies that the concurrent copy facility is preferred. If a concurrent copy session can be established, the data sets are backed up using the concurrent copy facility. Otherwise, the data sets are backed up by DFSMSdss logical dump without concurrent copy.
• CONCURRENT REQUIRED (R) - specifies that the concurrent copy facility is required. If a concurrent copy session cannot be established, the data sets will not be backed up.
• STANDARD (S) - specifies that the concurrent copy facility is not to be used, even though it may be available for the data sets. Normal DFSMSdss logical dump backup processing is used without concurrent copy.
• VIRTUAL PREFERRED (VP) - specifies that the virtual concurrent copy is preferred. If a virtual concurrent copy session cannot be established, the data sets are backed up by DFSMSdss logical dump without concurrent copy.
• VIRTUAL REQUIRED (VR) - specifies that the virtual concurrent copy is required. If a virtual concurrent copy session cannot be established, the data sets will not be backed up.
• CACHE PREFERRED (CP) - specifies that the cache-based concurrent copy is preferred. If a cache-based concurrent copy session cannot be established, the data sets are backed up by DFSMSdss logical dump without concurrent copy.
• CACHE REQUIRED (CR) - specifies that the cache-based concurrent copy is required. If a cache-based concurrent session cannot be established, the data sets will not be backed up.

When DFSMShsm is performing either automatic, volume, or command data set backup processing, the management class associated with a data set specifies that a concurrent copy BACKUP COPY TECHNIQUE is to be used, and DFSMSdss is the data mover, then DFSMShsm invokes DFSMSdss using the appropriate CONCURRENT parameter.