Creating image copies from System Level Backups

You can use IMS Recovery Expert to make IMS image copies from System Level Backups if database restore was enabled when the backup job was built.

After the backup is complete, you can select an existing job profile, or create a new job profile, to specify which databases to create image copies for. The image copies that are created are registered in IMS Database Recovery Control (DBRC), which allows the image copies to be used by any IMS utility that can process IMS image copies.

A System Level Backup that is taken using any method can be used to create the image copies. In most cases, a backup offloaded to tape can also be used; however, if the profile used FDR or FDRInstant to offload the backup, then that offloaded backup cannot be used to make image copies.

The image copies are registered with a runtime that is the time of the System Level Backup. Image copies for database data sets that were allocated at the time of the backup are registered as a Concurrent Image Copies (CIC).

Restrictions:

Image copies cannot be created for databases with reusable image copies defined.
Image copies cannot be created for database data sets encrypted by z/OS® data set encryption function.