Sending alternate tapes off site

To use alternate tapes for disaster backup by sending them to a safe site, you must determine what tapes to send away and determine when to bring the tapes back and reuse them. Use the following procedure to send alternate tapes offsite:

1. Issue the TAPECOPY command for your non-duplexed tapes (backup, migration, or all, as you desire).
2. Issue LIST TTOC to determine which volumes have alternate copies.
3. Send the alternate tapes off site.
4. When you process the RECYCLE command, DFSMShsm invalidates the alternate tapes at the same time that it invalidates the tapes from which they were copied. Both the original and the alternate tape are passed to the ARCTVEXT installation-wide exit.
5. Request the return from the offsite location of the alternate tapes that have been invalidated, and return the tapes to the scratch pool.