A management class is a collection of management attributes that the storage administrator defines. For data sets, these attributes control retention, migration, backup, and release of allocated but unused space. For OAM objects, the attributes control retention, backup, and class transition. You can also use management classes to define how your aggregate groups should be managed. DFSMShsm acts on many management class attributes.

Management class is optional for SMS-managed data sets and does not apply to non-SMS-managed data sets.

Table 1 shows the types of attributes that you can associate with a management class.

Related reading: For more information on how DFSMShsm implements your management class policies, see Managing Space and Managing Availability. For more information about defining management classes, see the z/OS DFSMSdfp Storage Administration.