Understanding aggregate groups

An aggregate group is an SMS construct that uses control information and data set lists to define an application or other group. The data stored in the aggregate group is the principal input to DFSMShsm application backup and recovery.

An aggregate group consists of backup criteria and a group of data sets selected for backup by the storage administrator according to application or other requirements. See z/OS DFSMShsm Storage Administration for further information on backing up or recovering aggregate groups.

The aggregate group application allows you to:

Generate a list of aggregate groups
Display the attributes of a single aggregate group
Define or alter the attributes of a single aggregate group
Delete aggregate groups
Edit and browse the selection data sets associated with aggregate groups
Edit and browse the instruction data sets associated with aggregate groups
Back up the selected aggregate group
Recover an aggregate group that has already been backed up
Specify one to fifteen local copies of aggregate backup (ABACKUP) output files to be created
Assign aggregate backup attributes to an aggregate group by specifying a management class name

Restriction: You cannot assign an object to an aggregate group.

ABACKUP allows specifying the number of copies of the Aggregate Backup and Recovery Support (ABARS) output files to be created using ISMF. The Copies value can be 1-15. The default is 1.

In order to support the creation of multiple copies, a unique name must be created for each copy. This entails using a new suffix convention for the output data sets:

.D.CccVnnnn for the DFSMSdss data file
.O.CccVnnnn for the internal data file
.C.CccVnnnn for the control file
.I.CccVnnnn for the instruction or activity log file

where

cc: Represents the copy number (a number from 1-15 of the copy created)
nnnn: Represents the version number

The name supports the elimination of the GDG support.