Back up the TMC and Audit Data Daily

Installation and Configuration Best Practices › Configuration for Optimal Performance › Back up the TMC and Audit Data Daily

Back up the TMC and Audit Data Daily

Back up the TMC and Audit data set daily by running the TMSCOPY utility. You should also maintain at least 6 months of Audit data.

Business Value:

Running TMSCOPY on a daily basis ensures that you have multiple backup copies of the TMC and provides for quick recovery of the TMC if the TMC is lost or damaged.

Additional Considerations:

TMSCOPY is used to back up the TMC and Audit data set transactions written since the previous backup. TMSCOPY may also be used to restore the TMC if it is corrupted or destroyed.

CA recommends that you use a generation data group (GDG) to manage the TMC and Audit file backups created by TMSCOPY. The Audit file includes all updates to the TMC from real-time Open/Close/EOV events, batch jobs, ISPF, and tape inquiry command (TIQ) updates. A separate utility—TMSAUDIT—can be used to read the backup and produce a report that shows the following:

What changes were made to a TMC record?
When the changes were made?
What utility or CA 1 component was made the changes?
Who made the change?

You can use IEBGENER to concatenate the daily backup to fewer tapes. Using this method, you can create a weekly or a monthly tape instead of individual daily tapes.

To allow you to maintain a history of tape activity, CA recommends that you to keep Audit files for 6–12 months. If you find that a tape has been scratched or modified, and you need to understand what has happened to that tape, the Audit data can provide you the answer. You can use CA Earl to read the Audit file and search for a specific volume or data set. You can also use the CA Vantage GMI user interface, which allows you to browse the Audit file records and use advanced filtering to search for a specific volume or data set.

Note: For more information about TMSCOPY or TMSAUDIT, see the Utilities and Reports Reference Guide. For more information about concatenating the Audit backups to fewer tapes, see the Administration Guide.