DFSMSdss COPY command with Cascading FlashCopy

Cascading FlashCopy® affects the requirement to withdraw copies prior to using FASTREVERSERESTORE. See changes marked with revision bars.

The DFSMSdss COPY command performs data set movement, volume movement, and track movement from one DASD volume to another.

You can copy data sets to another volume of either like or unlike device types. Like devices have the same track capacity (3390 Model 2 and 3390 Model 3), while unlike devices have different track capacities (3380 Model K and 3390 Model 3).

However, the DASD must be of like device type if you copy a full volume, range of tracks, or physically copy a data set. The user must specify the source volumes and the target volumes. DFSMSdss only allows one source volume and one target volume.

DFSMSdss offers two ways to process COPY commands as follows:
  • Logical processing is data set-oriented, which means that it operates against data sets and volumes independently of physical device format.
  • Physical processing can operate against data sets, volumes, and tracks, but is oriented toward moving data at the track-image level. The processing method is determined by the keywords specified on the command.

Integrated catalog facility catalogs should not have a high-level qualifier of SYSCTLG because this causes DFSMSdss to treat them as control volumes.

DFSMSdss COPY will always preserve data set encryption attributes of the source data set. Therefore, new allocations will be defined with the source encryption attribute. If a pre-allocated target data set is encountered, it must also be encrypted to be considered a usable target data set. The usable pre-allocated target will be overwritten with the source encryption attributes (which includes the key label).