Automatic restart management is an MVS™ recovery function that can improve the availability of specific batch jobs or started tasks. When a job or task fails, or the system on which it is running fails, automatic restart management can restart the job or task without operator intervention.

The goals of SFM and automatic restart management are complementary. While SFM keeps the sysplex running, automatic restart management keeps specific work in the sysplex running. If a job or task fails, automatic restart management restarts it on the same system it was running on at the time of the failure. If a system fails, automatic restart management restarts the work on other systems in the sysplex; this is called a cross-system restart.

A program cannot use both automatic restart management and checkpoint/restart. If a program using checkpoint/restart tries to register with automatic restart management, the request is rejected.