It is critical for your Operations staff to train and practice taking a stand-alone dump so that they are familiar with the procedure, and to ensure that all data sets are set up properly before you run into a critical situation. This includes the process and set up for:
If the dump resides in a DASD dump data set, IBM® recommends that you copy the dump to another data set for IPCS processing and clear (re-initialize) the dump data set using the AMDSADDD or IPCS SADMP dump data set utilities. For more information, see the topic on "Using the AMDSADDD utility" in Using the IPCS Dialog in z/OS MVS IPCS User's Guide.
The best practice is to rehearse taking a stand-alone dump during scheduled disaster recovery drills. You can also consider practicing when migrating to a new z/OS® release, or when moving to a new processor. If you have a test LPAR that you use to train your operations staff, one part of that training might be to take a stand-alone dump following your local procedures and prepare how to react to stand-alone dump messages.