Backing up and restoring files: options

There are several options for backing up and restoring files:

Data Facility System-Managed Storage Hierarchical Storage Manager (DFSMShsm) provides automatic backup facilities for data sets. The systems programmer uses DFSMShsm facilities to back up mountable file systems by backing up the data sets that contain them on a regular basis; the data sets can be restored when necessary. DFSMShsm is also used for migrating (archiving) and restoring unmounted file systems.
Tivoli® Storage Manager (TSM), formerly known as ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM), provides a backup function for z/OS UNIX clients. There are two types of backup: incremental, in which all new or changed files are backed up; and selective, in which the user backs up specific files.
Backup can be performed automatically or when the user requests it. The user can initiate a specific type of backup or start the scheduler, which will run whatever action the administrator has scheduled for the user's machine.
From the shells, you can manually back up data by using the TSO/E OGET command to copy files into an MVS™ sequential data set, partitioned data set, or partitioned data set extended (PDSE) that you know is backed up. To simplify archiving multiple files, the pax or tar utilities can be used to consolidate individual component files into a single archive file that can then be copied to an MVS data set. pax and tar can write the archive directly to an MVS data set, eliminating the need to copy the archive manually with OGET. For more information about using pax or tar and OGET to backup and restore file from the shell, see Backing up and restoring files from the shell.

You can use the cron utility to automatically start running pax or tar commands at a specified time.

After the files are in an MVS data set, you can load the data set to a tape. Conversely, you can load files from a tape into an MVS data set and then copy them into the file system. For more information, refer to Transporting an archive file on tape or diskette.