DFSMShsm provides the aggregate group backup and recovery support (ABARS), another solution for the backup and recovery of data sets. ABARS lets you define critical applications and back up each application as an aggregate group. An aggregate group is a group of related data sets that require concurrent action. If a disaster occurs, you can use ABARS to restore critical applications after restoring the base operating systems. If you identify and back up only critical data, you can reduce the total amount of data going offsite for disaster recovery.

You can define policies specifying how you want the aggregate copies to be managed, such as how many copies of versions you want, or how long you want to keep your extra versions, and then allow DFSMS to automatically implement those policies. You can use DFSMSrmm to manage the movement of both ABARS and DFSMShsm backup tapes. DFSMSrmm keeps track of where tapes are stored and can provide you with a list of tapes you need to move offsite for storage or to retrieve in case of an unrecoverable error. ABARS can also be used for application transfer from one site to another. Host systems can act as disaster recovery sites for each other when you use tape library partitioning support to set up sets of tape libraries at different locations accessed by the host systems.