Skip,
In the past I implemented STK tapes, the largest tape system in Poland
at the time. Interesting job. :-)
It seems, you shared control datasets between datacenters. Assuming your
second datacenter is for disaster recovery, you had single point of
failure. Catalog is not important there, but availability of datasets
is. How could you work with tapes in case the datasets are lost due to
catastrophe of primary DC?
IMHO the only way was to have remote copy of control datasets. Last, but
not least, as far as I remember the datasets were very specific - they
have (had?) hardcoded both volume labels and device numbers. While
remote copy replicate volume label, the dev num is IODF dependend. There
was a method for that, I forgot details. Other method could be a trick
with duplicate device numbers.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
W dniu 24.05.2020 o 21:29, Jesse 1 Robinson pisze:
Until recently, we shared a catalog not only across sysplexes but between data
centers. All because of tape. We had STK virtual tape (in both data centers)
supported by MIA (Multi Image Allocation). These products require control data
sets shared among all exploiting systems. We could have managed with
uncataloged data sets, but that was deemed riskier in the long run than a
shared catalog. The only entries in the catalog were for tape management data
sets. We never had a catastrophe. 😉
.
.
J.O.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
323-715-0595 Mobile
626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW
robin...@sce.com
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From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of R.S.
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 7:42 AM
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Subject: (External):Re: Opinions/experience on sharing catalogs outside plex
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Well, it is not good idea, but sometimes even such idea is better than nothing.
What's important the risk covers THIS catalog only, not whole world.
And yes, this catalog and shared datasets should be shared without "sysplex
features" like changes is serialization. RESERVE should be used here or CA-MIM
should be used, but the last one is add-on tool.
BTW: BCS can be defined with SHR(3 4) or SHR(3 3). For this case it has to be
SHR(3 4). AFAIK it is alterable.
Again: small activity is your friend here. Small number of datasets cataloged
in the BCS is good here. Potential problems with the BCS will not affect other
BCSes.
I use it for years (with limited activity). Mostly PS files and some VSAM. No
problems observed.
Caution: PDSE *will* break despite of way how catalog is shared. No help from
CA-MIM, AFAIK. Observed many times educated many guys who used PDSE for sharing.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
W dniu 20.04.2020 o 14:45, Allan Staller pisze:
Yes, it can be done. I reiterate, IMO, this is most likely not a good idea.
In order to accomplish this safely, you also need to regress GRS to pre-GRS
functionality.
Everything affecting this catalog must be handled w/Reserve/Release,
and not normal processing VSAM Sharoptions for the catalog need to be changed. IIRC when
I "undid" this the catalog hand Shareoptions (2,3) (or was it 4,3?).
This option tells z/OS that the user is responsible for Catalog seriailization.
SYSDSN, SYSIGGV2, SYSVTOC, SYSZVSAM (?) and the SPF* queues need to be excluded
from GRS processing.
In my case that led to various deadly embraces that usually led to manual
intervention.
My $0.02 USD on this is: Why point the shotgun at your foot?
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of R.S.
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 3:45 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Opinions/experience on sharing catalogs outside plex
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W dniu 09.04.2020 o 02:11, Rob Schramm pisze:
I am considering sharing some usercats outside of a sysplex. What I
can find is that sysiggv2 must be kept as a reserve to do so.
Looking for others that have had to do this.
One question I had was, what happens on a ispf 3.4 when the data set
is part of the catalog but exists in another system? Ief238d?
My €0.02
1. You can share catalogs between sysplexes. Note: we mean BCS, which is
usually called catalog.
2. The less activity on the BCS the better.
3. The above means:
3.1. Avoid keeping non-shared datasets in the BCS. Use another BCS for that.
3.2. It is not bad idea to have multiple "small" shared BCSes.
4. You cannot use any sophisticated catalog sharing features like RLS or ECS.
Regarding you last question: I understand it as you have entry in the BCS, but
the dataset reside on volume which is not share, that mean it is unavailable
for one system. It's nothing exotic. It's like orphan catalog entry, which
sometimes may happen even without BCS sharing (usually as result of human
error).
However that also means the sharing is not done correctly. The best scenario is
when all datasets cataloged in shared BCS reside on volumes which are also
shared. Preferably the BCS is also on the volume from that group.
Keep it simple.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
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