Storage Management Subsystem (SMS)

SMS, a facility of DFSMS, provides centralized management of external storage as specified by the currently active storage management policy. The Interactive Storage Management Facility (ISMF), which is shipped as part of DFSMSdfp, provides the interactive interface to define an installation's storage management policy in an SMS configuration.

The SMS configuration is stored in a data set called the source control data set (SCDS). The security administrator uses ISMF options to define and modify the SCDS.

ISMF also provides for the creation and modification of ACS (automatic class selection) routines that are used in the selection of SMS classes and groups for SMS- managed data sets. These routines are stored in an SCDS in object format using ISMF.

The security administrator also uses ISMF functions to validate the set of ACS routines and SMS classes and groups and to test the ACS routines.

The security administrator must protect SMS to prevent unauthorized users from modifying the information in the control data sets. You can use the RACF® STORCLAS and MGMTCLAS resource classes to protect the ability of a resource owner to use management and storage classes. Use the RACF PROGRAM resource class to prevent unauthorized users from running selected ISMF programs. Use the RACF FACILITY resource class with STGADMIN resources to control such functions as activating a configuration or performing catalog functions on SMS data sets.

See z/OS DFSMSdfp Storage Administration for information on using ISMF to define storage management functions.

See z/OS Security Server RACF Security Administrator's Guide and z/OS DFSMSdfp Storage Administration for information on implementing protection for SMS.