A general VOLCAT is the default tape volume catalog. A general VOLCAT contains all tape library entries and any tape volume entries that do not point to a specific VOLCAT. Each system can have access to only one general VOLCAT. The general VOLCAT must be defined prior to bringing the tape libraries online. All General Tape Volume Catalogs must be defined in the Master Catalog of the processing system. All systems connected to the IBM® 3495 Tape Library Dataserver must use the same high level qualifier for their tape volume catalogs. If different versions exist, different systems can be accessing different sets of tape volume catalogs. See Defining Names for a Tape Volume Catalog for more detail. The procedure for specifying the tape volume catalog high level qualifier is shown in Bypassing SYSCATxx with LOADxx.

  //DEFVCAT     JOB     ...
  //STEP1       EXEC   PGM=IDCAMS
  //SYSPRINT    DD     SYSOUT=A
  //SYSIN       DD     *
       DEFINE USERCATALOG -
             (NAME(SYS1.VOLCAT.VGENERAL) -
             VOLCATALOG -
             VOLUME(338001) -
             CYLINDERS(1 1))
  /*