Recovering with a system-level backup

You can take system-level backups by using the BACKUP SYSTEM utility. In some cases, the RECOVER utility can use a system-level backup of the database copy pool as a recovery base.

Procedure

To specify that system-level backups can be used by RECOVER:

Specify YES for the SYSTEM_LEVEL_BACKUPS installation option on installation panel DSNTIP6.
The RECOVER utility chooses the most recent backup to restore. The backup can be:
  • A sequential format image copy
  • A VSAM FlashCopy®® image copy
  • A concurrent copy
  • A system-level backup
The choice of which backup is to be restored is based on the recovery point for the table spaces or indexes that are being recovered. (For an index to be recovered in this way, the COPY YES attribute must be specified.) However, several exceptions for using a system-level backup exist.

Exceptions:

If any of the following utilities were run since the system-level backup that was chosen as the recovery base, the use of the system-level backup by the RECOVER utility is prohibited:

  • REORG TABLESPACE
  • REORG INDEX
  • REBUILD INDEX
  • LOAD REPLACE
  • RECOVER from image copy or concurrent copy

In these cases, the recovery terminates with message DSNU1528I and return code 8.

Note: Start of changeWhen the Capture Catalog Information for Data Set Recovery attribute is specified as R (Required) or P (Preferred) for the database copy pool along with the Catalog Name(s), and the catalog information was successfully captured in the system-level backup during the BACKUP SYSTEM utility execution, then the RECOVER utility can use:
  • a system-level backup, even if the REBUILD INDEX, RECOVER, REORG, and LOAD utilities ran after the system-level backup was created.
  • system-level backups, even if a data set has moved since the backup was created.
End of change

For a partition-by-growth table space, a point-in-time recovery is not allowed if the recovery period includes REORG TABLESPACE deleting empty partitions. REORG TABLESPACE can delete the highest numbered partitions if they are empty and the REORG_DROP_PBG_PARTS subsystem parameter is set to ENABLE or if the DROP_PART YES keyword is specified.

The RECOVER utility invokes DFSMShsm to restore the data sets for the object from the system-level backup of the database copy pool. The user ID that invokes the RECOVER utility must have the authority to execute the DFSMShsm FRRECOV command.