Where to find recovery information

Information that is needed for recovery is contained in several locations.

SYSIBM.SYSCOPY
SYSIBM.SYSCOPY is a catalog table that contains information about full and incremental image copies. If concurrent updates were allowed when making the copy, the log RBA corresponds to the image copy start time; otherwise, it corresponds to the end time. The RECOVER utility uses the log RBA to look for log information after restoring the image copy. The SYSCOPY catalog table also contains information that is recorded by the COPYTOCOPY utility.

SYSCOPY also contains entries with the same kinds of log RBAs that are recorded by the utilities QUIESCE, REORG, LOAD, REBUILD INDEX, RECOVER TOCOPY, and RECOVER TOLOGPOINT.

When the REORG utility is used, the time at which Db2 writes the log RBA to SYSIBM.SYSCOPY depends on the value of the SHRLEVEL parameter:

  • For SHRLEVEL NONE, the log RBA is written at the end of the reload phase.

    If a failure occurs before the end of the reload phase, the RBA is not written to SYSCOPY.

    If a failure occurs after the reload phase is complete (and therefore, after the log RBA is written to SYSCOPY), the RBA is not backed out of SYSCOPY.

  • For SHRLEVEL REFERENCE and SHRLEVEL CHANGE, the log RBA is written at the end of the switch phase.

    If a failure occurs before the end of the switch phase, the RBA is not written to SYSCOPY.

    If a failure occurs after the switch phase is complete (and thus, after the log RBA is written to SYSCOPY), the RBA is not backed out of SYSCOPY.

The log RBA is put in SYSCOPY regardless of whether the LOG option is YES or NO, or whether the UNLOAD PAUSE option is specified.

When DSNDB01.DBD01, DSNDB01.SYSUTILX, DSNDB06.SYSTSCPY, and DSNDB01.SYSDBDXA are quiesced or copied, a SYSCOPY record is created for each table space and any associated index that has the COPY YES attribute. For recovery reasons, the SYSCOPY records for these three objects are placed in the log.

SYSIBM.SYSLGRNX
SYSIBM.SYSLGRNX is a directory table that contains records of the log RBA ranges that are used during each period of time that any recoverable page set is open for update. Those records speed recovery by limiting the scan of the log for changes that must be applied.

If you discard obsolete image copies, you should consider removing their records from SYSIBM.SYSCOPY and the obsolete log ranges from SYSIBM.SYSLGRNX.

BSDS (bootstrap data set)
The BSDS contains information about system-level backups, and the Db2 archive log data sets. The RECOVER utility uses the recovery base log point RBA or LRSN value associated with the system-level backup to look for the log information after restoring the object from the system-level backup.

In a data-sharing environment, each Db2 member keeps track of the system-level backups taken on that particular member in its BSDS.

DFSMShsm
The RECOVER utility queries DFSMShsm for information about whether a system-level backup resides on disk or tape.