The important point in backing up and recovering the project environment is that all the data remains synchronized. The project partitioned data sets contain related data, and the control data sets contain the control information for the PDS members. Thus, backing up and restoring the project environment means that the project partitioned data sets and the control data sets must be backed up and restored together.

The recommended procedure for backing up the project environment is to run a background job when no one is working within the hierarchy. You should determine how often to run this job. Remember that the topmost group of the hierarchy (the production group) usually contains most of the software and is usually frozen. You should back up the topmost groups whenever new data is promoted into the topmost groups. The lower groups in the hierarchy are subject to change much more often, and the code in the development groups usually changes daily. Perform backups for the lower groups based on your project's requirements. Again, remember that you must back up an entire group as a unit; this includes the project partitioned data sets and the control data sets.

Be careful when recovering a project environment. When you restore a group, it returns to the version that was in effect when you backed it up. This change can affect code below the restored group. Also the control data sets reflect the status of the group when it was backed up.