Managing exceptions in retention

DFSMSrmm provides several parmlib options to help you ensure that data is retained as expected and that the correct retention policies are in place. Use these options to customize how you expect DFSMSrmm to detect and handle exceptions to normal retention processing.

VRSMIN: Use this to ensure that sufficient VRSes are defined to support your retention policies.
VRSCHANGE: Use this to detect when a VRS might have been added, changed, or deleted, which could cause the number of data sets and volumes being retained to different than expected.
VRSDROP: Use this to establish your normal expectations for numbers or percentage of volumes being removed from VRS retention.
VRSRETAIN: Use this to establish your normal expectations of the numbers or percentages of newly assigned volumes to be retained by VRS.
EXPDTDROP: Use this to establish your normal expectations for the numbers or percentages of volumes dropped from expiration date retention.

You can use the actions for each of these options to allow DFSMSrmm processing to continue after an information message is issued or you can have the message issued and either a warning or an error return code set. You can build recovery actions into your production batch job to take the correct actions when one of these alerts occurs based on the job step return code.

All of these options, except for VRSCHANGE, provide you with a way to disable the checking that DFSMSrmm performs. When an option is disabled, DFSMSrmm does not count the resources and does not check if the actions are to be taken. To disable an option set the action to OFF.

To help you establish the settings for these parmlib options, each time you run VRSEL processing, and you have not disabled the limit checking, DFSMSrmm counts and calculates how many volumes are affected and lists information in the MESSAGE file, as shown in this example. You can see how many volumes and what percentage of these are affected. In particular, look at messages:

EDG2242I: Shows how many volumes are VRS retained as VRSEL starts
EDG2243I: Shows how many volumes are newly assigned as VRSEL starts
EDG2244I: Shows number of volumes dropped from VRS retention and the percent of the initially VRS retained volumes
EDG2245I: Shows number of newly assigned volumes retained for VRS and the percent of the initially newly assigned volumes
EDG2246I: Shows how many data sets are excluded from VRSEL processing
EDG2427I: Shows how many volumes are expiration date retained at the start of expiration processing
EDG2428I: Shows number of volumes dropped from EXPDT retention and the percent of the initially expiration date retained volumes

1EDG6001I INVENTORY MANAGEMENT STARTING ON 01/11/2010 AT 04:24:44 - PARAMETERS IN USE ARE
          DATEFORM(A),VRSEL,CATSYNCH,DSTORE(LOCATION(*:*)),EXPROC
 EDG6013I THE SYSIN OPTIONS CURRENTLY IN USE ARE
          EXPROC
          EDGSPLCS(YES)
          VOLUMES(A039*)
 EDG2309I THE PARMLIB OPTIONS CURRENTLY IN USE ARE
          VRSEL(NEW)
          VRSJOBNAME(2)
          VRSMIN(1,FAIL)
          VRSCHANGE(INFO)
          VRSDROP(PERCENT(10),INFO) VRSRETAIN(PERCENT(80),INFO) EXPDTDROP(PERCENT(10),INFO)
          SMSTAPE(PURGE(ASIS) UPDATE(EXITS,SCRATCH,COMMAND))
          CATRETPD(12)
          UNCATALOG(S)
          TPRACF(N)
          NOTIFY(Y)
          SYSID(EZU0000)
          CATSYSID(*)
          RETAINBY(VOLUME)
          MOVEBY(VOLUME)
          GDG(CYCLEBY(GENERATION),DUPLICATE(BUMP))
 EDG2308I CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE TO VRS POLICIES SINCE THE PREVIOUS INVENTORY MANAGEMENT RUN
 EDG2229I NUMBER OF VRS RECORDS READ IS 8
 EDG2238I NUMBER OF UNUSED VRS RECORDS IS 2
 EDG2246I NUMBER OF DATA SET RECORDS EXCLUDED FROM VRSEL =          1  25%
 EDG2242I INITIAL NUMBER OF VRS RETAINED VOLUMES         =          0   0%
 EDG2244I NUMBER OF VRS RETAINED VOLUMES TO BE DROPPED   =          0   0%
 EDG2243I INITIAL NUMBER OF NEWLY ASSIGNED VOLUMES       =         18 100%
 EDG2245I NUMBER OF NEWLY ASSIGNED VOLUMES TO BE RETAINED=          6  33%
 EDG2234I DFSMSrmm CDS CATALOG STATUS UNKNOWN FOR RMMUSER.CATCDSN VOLUME A03971 FILE 1 SYNCHRONIZED TO CATALOG STATUS YES
 EDG2234I DFSMSrmm CDS CATALOG STATUS UNKNOWN FOR RMMUSER.CATCDSY VOLUME A03972 FILE 1 SYNCHRONIZED TO CATALOG STATUS YES
 EDG2307I INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TASK CATSYNCH COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
 EDG2444I EXIT PROCESSING DISABLED FOR THIS EXPROC RUN - NO ACTIVE EXIT MODULE FOR EXIT EDG_EXIT200
 EDG2427I INITIAL NUMBER OF EXPDT RETAINED VOLUMES       =         14  44%
 EDG2428I NUMBER OF EXPDT RETAINED VOLUMES TO BE DROPPED =         14 100%
 EDG2420I PHYSICAL VOLUMES READ                          =         21  54%
 EDG2420I LOGICAL  VOLUMES READ                          =         11  28%
 EDG2420I STACKED  VOLUMES READ                          =          7  18%
 EDG2420I RM_VRSEL VOLUMES READ                          =         22  56%
 EDG2420I RM_EXPDT VOLUMES READ                          =         17  44%
 EDG2420I TOTAL    VOLUMES READ                          =         39 100%
 EDG2421I PHYSICAL VOLUMES UPDATED                       =         21 100%
 EDG2421I LOGICAL  VOLUMES UPDATED                       =         11 100%
 EDG2421I RM_VRSEL VOLUMES UPDATED                       =         18  82%
 EDG2421I RM_EXPDT VOLUMES UPDATED                       =         14  82%
 EDG2421I TOTAL    VOLUMES UPDATED                       =         32  82%
 EDG2422I PHYSICAL VOLUMES, THIS RUN, KEPT FOR VRS       =          6  29%
 EDG2422I TOTAL    VOLUMES, THIS RUN, KEPT FOR VRS       =          6  15%
 EDG2423I PHYSICAL VOLUMES, THIS RUN, ASSIGNED TO STORES =          1   5%
 EDG2423I TOTAL    VOLUMES, THIS RUN, ASSIGNED TO STORES =          1   3%
 EDG2435I PHYSICAL VOLUMES SELECTED FOR EXPROC           =         21 100%
 EDG2435I LOGICAL  VOLUMES SELECTED FOR EXPROC           =         11 100%
 EDG2435I RM_VRSEL VOLUMES SELECTED FOR EXPROC           =         18  82%
 EDG2435I RM_EXPDT VOLUMES SELECTED FOR EXPROC           =         14  82%
 EDG2435I TOTAL    VOLUMES SELECTED FOR EXPROC           =         32  82%
 EDG2424I PHYSICAL VOLUMES SET PENDING RELEASE           =         15  71%
 EDG2424I LOGICAL  VOLUMES SET PENDING RELEASE           =         11 100%
 EDG2424I RM_VRSEL VOLUMES SET PENDING RELEASE           =         12  67%
 EDG2424I RM_EXPDT VOLUMES SET PENDING RELEASE           =         14 100%
 EDG2424I TOTAL    VOLUMES SET PENDING RELEASE           =         26  81%
 EDG2425I PHYSICAL VOLUMES RETURNED TO SCRATCH           =          7  33%
 EDG2425I LOGICAL  VOLUMES RETURNED TO SCRATCH           =          5  45%
 EDG2425I RM_EXPDT VOLUMES RETURNED TO SCRATCH           =         12  86%
 EDG2425I TOTAL    VOLUMES RETURNED TO SCRATCH           =         12  38%
 EDG2426I PHYSICAL VOLUMES - SCRATCH RECORDS WRITTEN     =          2  10%
 EDG2426I RM_EXPDT VOLUMES - SCRATCH RECORDS WRITTEN     =          2  14%
 EDG2426I TOTAL    VOLUMES - SCRATCH RECORDS WRITTEN     =          2   6%
 EDG2429I MAIN INVENTORY MANAGEMENT UPDATES HAVE COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
 EDG2307I INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TASK VRSEL    COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
 EDG2307I INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TASK DSTORE   COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
 EDG2307I INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TASK EXPROC   COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
 EDG6901I UTILITY EDGHSKP COMPLETED WITH RETURN CODE 0

Through analysis of several runs, you can determine what your normal expectations are and use these to set the thresholds, limits and actions you require.

The ACTIVITY file contains detailed information about data set and volume related changes to the control data set made by DFSMSrmm during inventory management. EDGJACTP sample JCL provides reports from a combination of ACTIVITY file and the report extract file data set and volume records to help you analyze the results of processing.

For the best retention limit reporting you need the ACTIVITY file and the extended records from the report extract file (XREPTEXT or REPTEXT DD) from the same EDGHSKP run. This could be one of the following:

VRSEL, VERIFY, RPTEXT
VRSEL, RPTEXT
VRSEL, EXPROC, RPTEXT
EXPROC, RPTEXT

Other supported EDGHSKP parameters might also have been requested.

The sample retention limit reports require that the date formats used for the ACTIVITY file and report extract file are the same and for correct processing require either ISO or Julian date format.

If you did not include RPTEXT, you should create a report extract as soon as possible and definitely before any other inventory management functions are used to update the control data set. The longer time you leave between the creation of the ACTIVITY file and the report extract the less accurate the retention limit reporting.

When you use a trial run, or the retention limit trigger action is FAIL, no updates are made to the CDS by inventory management, so the report extract reflects the CDS contents at the start of the run, plus any tape activity during the run. In all other cases, the report extract also reflects the updates made by the inventory management run. Regardless of this, EDGJACTP VRSRETN, VRSRETNS, EXPDROP, and EXPDROPS reports provide a good analysis of the processing performed or that would have been performed.