SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM

Solution delivered

Allows creation of point-in-time backup copies of VSAM files without interrupting business-critical application processing

Key benefits

Business challenge

Maximizing data availability is becoming a more prevalent issue as information processing capabilities must evolve to better accommodate round-the-clock, global business operations. Organizations relying on VSAM-based mainframe applications can benefit greatly from the capability to create image copies of VSAM files to meet necessary backup and recovery needs without interrupting application processing.

The availability solution

The SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM (SCV™) product from BMC Software is a stand-alone solution that is also an integral component of the EXTENDED BUFFER MANAGER (XBM™) data caching product. SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM offers a valuable solution to help customers address growing 24x7 application availability needs.

Enterprise Snapshot for Storage Systems Integration

Enterprise Snapshot for Storage Systems Integration exploits the features of EMC TimeFinder and Hitachi Remote Copy enabled storage devices to provide hardware Snapshot functionality for BMC Software utilities. If Enterprise Snapshot detects that a data set targeted for Snapshot processing resides on supported hardware, it will transparently invoke the hardware's ability to produce near instantaneous copies of data. This capability allows Enterprise Snapshot for Storage Systems Integration to minimize host resource consumption and increase SUF reliability.

In a planned future release, Enterprise Snapshot for Storage Systems Integration intends to allow the BMC Software nondisruptive utilities to further exploit the intelligent storage functionality.

Nondisruptive copies

By itself, the SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM technology enables the creation of point-in-time image copies of VSAM files concurrent with business-critical batch and online activity. This capability can be essential to data administrators striving to meet increasingly stringent service level agreements with limited resources and a shrinking batch window.

For improved application availability, SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM allows the creation of point-in-time copies of VSAM files while updates occur. Users retain full read and write access to the files critical to your business.

With SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM, Snapshot copies and updates can be performed in parallel, rather than using the traditional serial process of first creating the backup copy and beginning updates only after the copy operation has executed. SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM uses IDCAMS REPRO compatible keywords and produces IDCAMS compatible output.

The SNAPSHOT COPY for VSAM product and BMC Software's high-performance utilities for the DB2* or IMS platforms are valuable tools for reducing the time and costs associated with database maintenance.

BMC Software offers a comprehensive suite of products for performing database recoveries, loads/unloads, reorganizations and integrity checking in legacy database environments.