OS/390 File Backup Policy

Weekly Backup Policy

• All Administrative disk files are copied to tape weekly. Full pack backups of all disk packs are copied to tape and the tapes are kept for 12 weeks.
• Refer to the Operations Policies and Procedures documentation and the section entitled ADMIN Compaktor/Backup for the backup schedule.
• See the Operations Policies and Procedures documentation and the section entitled Tape Security for the procedure for vaulting these backup tapes to offsite secured storage facility.

Daily Backup Policy

• All Administrative production files are backed up daily (Monday through Friday) after the production online transaction-processing system is shut down each evening and before the batch production processing begins.
• These backups are incremental backups and copy only those production files that have been created or modified since the last incremental backup.
• Backups are performed using FDR and are first backed up to disk. Once all the backups are done, then all the data that was backed up to disk is copied to two sets of tapes. Once all backups have been copied to tape, the disk backups are deleted. One set of backup tapes is kept in the main tape library, the other copy is sent to our secure off-site tape library in case it is needed for disaster recovery.
• All Administrative production files are again backed up daily (Monday through Friday) after the batch production processing has completed for the day.
• These backups are also incremental backups and follow the same procedure as the backups taken before the nightly batch processing.
• Each daily backup tape is kept for 2 weeks.

Production Source Code and Load Module Backups

• Monthly we backup to tape the following libraries:
• Production source code library
• Batch and CICS production load module libraries
• Production JCL library
• Production procedure library
• Production control file library
• These files are backed up on the 5th of each month and are kept for 2 years.

Additional Backups

• Critical production batch streams that update production files require that a backup step be included in the job stream, unless the files in use are controlled by ShareOption5 (SO5). Then no backups are taken as we can recover using SO5 procedures.
• If any process that updates a production file aborts, the files automatically restore to the version prior to the update. Usually 3 to 5 generations of the tape backup are kept.
To Return to the ACS Home Page Last Revised 02/09/2006