Expanded Retention Option › The ERO Table

The ERO Table

The ERO table performs three functions:

1. Overrides the standard report retention specified in NGENT and NGEND.
2. Assigns reports to a STORGRP so they are backed up with other reports in the same STORGRP.
3. Specifies when reports are to be migrated to secondary storage (OPTICAL or CENTERA) and assigns a retention for report copies residing on those devices.

SYSOUTs are given expanded retention status with entries in what is referred to as the expanded retention table, or ERO table. Expanded retention table entries are defined to CA View using the SARPATAB DD statement in the CA View started task JCL, and in the SARDSK2B batch job for optical migration.

You can use wildcards in the expanded retention table statements, to identify all SYSOUT IDs that contain a particular character string. You can specify wildcards at any location in the SYSOUT ID. ABC* and AB*C*D are valid SYSOUT ID entries in the table.

The terms expanded retention and permanent status are synonymous.

The Expanded Retention Option (ERO) of CA View uses a table to provide additional retention capabilities for specific reports or groups of reports. The base CA View product only allows retention based on database generations. A report may be retained in the database for x generations (NGEND initialization parameter) and on a backup tape for y generations (NGENT initialization parameter). Without ERO, all reports will have the same retention. ERO provides additional retention options based on generations, days, and copies.