How COPYTOCOPY determines which input copy to use

The COPYTOCOPY utility makes a copy of an existing image copy. Which image copy the utility uses as input depends on the options that you specify and where you run the utility job.

If you specify the FROMCOPY keyword in the utility control statement, only the specified data set is used as input to the COPYTOCOPY job.

If you do not specify the FROMCOPY keyword, COPYTOCOPY uses the following search order to determine the input data set:

If you run the utility at the local site, the search order is the local site primary copy, the local site backup copy, the recovery site primary copy, and the recovery site backup copy.
If you run the utility at the recovery site, the search order is the recovery site primary copy, the recovery site backup copy, the local site primary copy, and the local site backup copy.

If the input data set cannot be allocated or opened, COPYTOCOPY attempts to use the next image copy data set, with the same START_RBA value in the SYSIBM.SYSCOPY catalog table, in the preceding search order.