System Programmer Reference › Restoring Data › TPI Restore Types › VOLSEARCH Restore Jobs

VOLSEARCH Restore Jobs

VOLSEARCH jobs let you restore data when the tapes that contain the backup data are available, but catalogs are not available, either because they were not created during the backup job or because they were discarded.

In a VOLSEARCH restore job, CA VM:Backup mounts a tape that you specify as the starting input volume. If the tape was not created within the specified time period, the job ends. If the tape was created within the time period, the job continues. If the specified tape is from an incremental backup, CA VM:Backup uses all previous incremental backups and the full backup on which they are based to perform the restore. CA VM:Backup uses these backups even if they were performed before the start date of the time period. In other words, the start date of the time period does not act as a cutoff date specifying which backups the job can use. CA VM:Backup will go back as far as the full backup even if it was performed before the start date of the time period. CA VM:Backup restores the requested data from the most recent backup within the time period.

The operator might need to mount one tape from each backup job twice (once to obtain information about proper tape sequence and again in the proper sequence to restore the data), but the other tapes in the tape sets need only be mounted once.

The order in which CA VM:Backup mounts the tapes depends on which of the CLEAR, NEWFILE, or REPLACE options is in effect. With NEWFILE, CA VM:Backup works from the most recent tape back to the full backup. With CLEAR and REPLACE, CA VM:Backup works from the oldest tape forward to the most recent.

Only system administrators can submit VOLSEARCH restore jobs.

When a VOLSEARCH restore job starts, CA VM:Backup performs these tasks:

1. Verifies that the job submitter is authorized to submit the job
2. Scans the online CP directory and file pools to build the source and target domain lists for the restore job
3. If restoring file pool data, verifies that the target file pools are available and that CA VM:Backup is a file pool administrator
4. Issues a tape mount request for the tape specified in the job template file
5. When the tape is mounted, reads the tape labels to:
   1. Verify that the backup was created within the specified time period
   2. Locate all the other tapes that were the first tapes of any other streams in that backup job
   3. Find the volser of a tape from an earlier backup (full or incremental) on which this backup was based
6. For each tape found that indicates an earlier backup, mounts the tape, and reads the tape labels
7. Continues mounting tapes as described in the two previous steps for each tape found until it finds a full backup or hits the cutoff date specified on the CUTOFF record in the TPI job.
8. Enrolls users based on restore job specifications
9. Acquires an exclusive lock on any user storage group, file space, or directory to which data is being restored
10. If the NEWFILE option is specified, CA VM:Backup mounts the first tape of the first stream from the most recent backup with the specified time period and begins searching for the data to restore. If the CLEAR or REPLACE option is specified, CA VM:Backup mounts the first tape of the first stream from the oldest backup and begins searching for the data to restore.

    Note: If only one tape is required for the job, CA VM:Backup detaches the tape after the scan phase and asks that it be mounted again to load data to disk

11. Restores the data to the target domains specified in the restore job as it encounters the data on the tapes

    For SFS and BFS file space restores, CA VM:Backup erases the existing directory structure. For all SFS data restores, CA VM:Backup enrolls any file space being restored if it does not already exist in the target file pool and restores the directory structure, base files, and authorizations as they existed at the time of the backup as specified by the job. For all BFS data restores, CA VM:Backup enrolls any file space being restored if it does not already exist in the target file pool and restores the directory structures, files, ownership, and permissions as they existed at the time of the backup.

12. Continues to mount tapes from the same backup until it has mounted all of the tapes and restored the data
13. Asks for the first tape of the next backup job to be mounted; continues to mount tapes and restore data as described above until it has scanned all of the tapes and restored the data
14. Restores SFS alias files specified in the restore job, if any; deletes file spaces based on the restore job specifications; and relinquishes any user storage group, file space, or directory locks obtained
15. Issues a message to all users who received a request to detach a minidisk, indicating that the target minidisks are now available for use