Defining a Basic Catalog Structure

Before you define a catalog, determine which attributes to assign to the catalog.

Sharing Catalogs Among Systems discusses catalog sharing and share options.
Choosing Options to Adjust Catalog Performance discusses performance attributes.
Estimating Space Requirements for the BCS discusses how to estimate the size for a BCS and how to define an extended addressable BCS.

Carefully consider these sections before you define a new catalog; some of the options you can specify when defining a catalog cannot be altered.

Note: BCSs cannot be defined in cylinder-managed space.

For a discussion of attributes that can be altered for an existing catalog, see Altering Catalog Attributes.

Use the access method services DEFINE USERCATALOG ICFCATALOG command to define the basic catalog structure of a catalog. Use the access method services DEFINE USERCATALOG VOLCATALOG to define a catalog that only contains tape library and tape volume entries. See the z/OS DFSMS Access Method Services Commands for more detail.

If the BCS is being defined on a volume that contains a VVDS, then the existing VVDS is cataloged in the newly created BCS. If there is no VVDS on the volume, the DEFINE USERCATALOG ICFCATALOG job allocates one for you, using the default attributes for the VVDS (see Defining a VVDS (catalog Volume Data Set) for information on defining a VVDS). If the job tries to create a VVDS and cannot (for example, if there is not enough space on the volume), the job terminates before the BCS is defined.

You must specify ICFCATALOG on the DEFINE USERCATALOG command. Otherwise, you will create a catalog catalog, the default.