Installation and Configuration Best Practices › Configuration for Optimal Performance › Multi-System Environment Considerations

Multi-System Environment Considerations

When sharing the TMC between systems outside of a SYSPLEX configuration, a single CTAPOPTN parameter library shared between systems is recommended.

Business Value:

The use of a single CA 1 CTAPOPTN when sharing a TMC and AUDIT file ensures that all systems sharing the TMC use the same options. This reduces the chance of having tapes being retained, vaulted, or managed differently depending on which system they were created.

Additional Considerations:

When the Real-time Expiration feature is used, the set of retention rules should be identical on all the systems to help ensure consistent results.

All systems sharing a single TMC must also share a single Audit data set.

Consider the following conditions when sharing the TMC and Audit data sets among multiple systems:

• The systems sharing a common TMC and AUDIT need not to belong to the same SYSPLEX and do not have to be at the same z/OS level.
• The CA 1 maintenance levels of the sharing systems need not to be the same but new features or enhancements may be usable only when supported by all systems.
• If all system catalogs are not shared across all the systems that share the TMC, set the option OCTLG to NO to enable real-time catalog control for these tapes. Also, the utility TMSUNCAT will need to be run daily on those systems that do NOT share the system catalogs with the system on which TMSCLEAN was run.

To avoid possible lockouts or performance degradation, we recommend that cross-domain management products like GRS or CA MIM do not handle CA 1 resources. Also, consider the following recommendations:

• If necessary, you can convert the CA 1 RESERVEs into global ENQUEUEs. This conversion can be done for the TMC and Audit resources only. The major name is TMSQNAME and the minor names are TMS-TMC and TMS-AUD. If you use the UNIQUE_RNAME in TMSXTEND, the minor names are TMS-TMC-vvvvvv-TMC.data.set.name, TMS-AUD-vvvvvv-AUDIT.data.set.name, and TMSAPEC-vvvvvv-TMC.data.set.name. If the RESERVEs are converted, they must be converted on all systems sharing the TMC and Audit. Which RNAME format is used depends on if you enabled the Unique_RNAME feature through the TMSXTEND utility or the TMSUDSNB utility.
• If the RESERVEs are not converted, the DASD volumes in which TMC and Audit reside on should not contain other data sets that are frequently used during tape processing, like system catalogs or control data sets of DASD management or security products, to prevent performance degradation or potential lockout situations.
• All CA 1 resources other than TMC, Audit, and TMSAPEC must be controlled locally. Do not share SYSTEM-level enqueues across multiple systems.

Note: For more information about the CTAPOPTN parameters OCTLG and UNCATA, see the Programming Guide. For more information about TMSUNCAT, see the Utilities and Reports Reference Guide.