Installation storage management policy overview

Each installation defines a storage management policy that allows effective tape storage management without requiring user intervention. Through ISMF, the storage administrator and system programmer define an installation storage management policy in an SMS configuration.

An SMS configuration for tape libraries consists of the following elements:

Base configuration. The base configuration identifies the systems and system groups in an SMS complex and contains installation defaults.
SMS constructs. Constructs are lists of attributes that are assigned to data sets and storage areas. An SMS configuration can contain five construct types. The following describes all five constructs; however, SMS-managed tape uses only storage group, storage class, and data class. With outboard policy management support in the Virtual Tape Server (VTS), the storage group, storage class, management class, and data class names are sent to the library.
- Storage group allows you to define a storage hierarchy and manage that hierarchy as if it were one large, single storage area.
- Storage class allows you to define different levels of performance objectives and availability requirements for system-managed storage.
- Data class allows you to define specific data attributes.
- Management class allows you to define different backup, retention, and class transition characteristics.
- Aggregate group allows you to group a collection of data objects that form a data type. This allows the data to be referred to collectively or individually.

An SMS configuration can contain multiple constructs of each type.