Before running BACKUP SYSTEM

Certain activities might be required before you run the BACKUP SYSTEM utility, depending on your situation.

To run BACKUP SYSTEM, ensure that the following conditions are true:

  • The data sets that you want to copy are SMS-managed data sets.
  • You are running z/OS® V1R7 or above.
  • You are running z/OS V1R8 or above if both of the following conditions are true:
    • You want to use the DUMP, DUMPONLY, or FORCE options.
    • You want the RECOVER utility to be able to use system-level backups for object-level recoveries.
  • You have disk control units that support ESS FlashCopy®.
  • Any needed copy pools are defined. See Copy pools.
  • The ICF catalog for the data must be on a separate volume than the ICF catalog for the logs.
  • An SMS backup storage group is defined for each storage group in the copy pools.