Protecting tapes

Protecting DFSMShsm’s tapes allows only DFSMShsm to access its tapes. Users can obtain data sets from DFSMShsm-owned tapes through DFSMShsm, but they cannot directly allocate or read the tapes.

The SETSYS TAPESECURITY command sub-parameters determine how DFSMShsm tapes are protected. The tape security options follow:

RACF® protection through RACF DATASET class with
- (EXPIRATION and EXPIRATIONINCLUDE) or
- (PASSWORD)
RACF protection through RACF TAPEVOL class through
- (RACF and RACFINCLUDE)
Expiration-date protection through
- (EXPIRATION and EXPIRATIONINCLUDE)
Password protection through
- (PASSWORD) - This is the default, if no selection is made.

As you implement your tape-protection policies, you must consider whether your tapes are managed by DFSMShsm alone, or if a tape management system (DFSMSrmm, for example) co-manages tapes. If a tape management system shares tape management responsibility, tape protection requirements are different than if DFSMShsm alone is managing tapes.

In some cases, you can specify more than one of the protection options from the preceding list. For example, you can choose the RACF and EXPIRATION sub-parameters to indicate that you want both RACF and expiration date protection.

For more information about using a tape management system and security, see Defining the environment for the tape management system.