Populating the IMS catalog by using IMS utilities

You can load or update the IMS catalog with the metadata about your database and program views by running either the IMS Catalog Populate utility (DFS3PU00) or the ACB Generation and Populate utility (DFS3UACB).

To populate the IMS catalog, these utilities read the metadata from one or more ACB libraries and insert the metadata into the IMS catalog. For some database types, the utilities also read metadata from DBD and PSB libraries.

The population utilities are also required to set up the IMS catalog to support the IMS management of ACBs. After the IMS management of ACBs is enabled, you can use either the population utilities or DDL to populate the IMS catalog and the population utilities can also be used to add the ACBs from an ACB library to the system-managed IMS directory data sets that are used by IMS to manage ACBs. When the population utilities are used to add ACBs to the IMS directory, the IMPORT DEFN SOURCE(CATALOG) command is usually required to complete the activiation of the ACBs.

The IMS catalog is a HALDB PHIDAM database. When a population utility adds a database or program view to the IMS catalog for the first time, the utility creates a new database record for the database or program view metadata. The root header segment identifies the record as being for a database (DBD) or a program view (PSB).

When a utility updates the metadata for an existing database or program view, the utility adds the metadata by inserting a complete DBD or PSB segment instance hierarchy under the existing header segment of the record.

If you use the ACB Generation and Catalog Populate utility to populate the IMS catalog, the utility generates the ACB members from the DBD and PSB libraries directly and populates the IMS catalog in a single job step.

If you use the IMS Catalog Populate utility to populate the IMS catalog, the ACBs must be generated separately and provided to the utility as input. The DBD and PSB libraries are only conditionally required.

The utilities use IMS catalog PCBs to add records to the IMS catalog. IMS provides the PSBs that contain these PCBs.

You must specify a different PSB depending on the activity you are performing. The following activities are listed with the PSBs that they require:
  • Performing an initial load of the IMS catalog: DFSCPL00
  • Inserting records to an existing IMS catalog: DFSCP001
  • Estimating the space requirements of the IMS catalog data sets: DFSCP000

You can also copy records from one IMS catalog to another by using the IMS Catalog Copy utility (DFS3CCI0, DFS3CCE0).