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The demand for 24x7 availability has never been greater. System outages due to the implementation of new DASD hardware can no longer be tolerated...FDRPAS can migrate entire DASD controllers, 100's of volumes a day (average elapsed time for a 3390-3 is 3 to 5 minutes), and can be used for daily I/O load balancing. FDRPAS can swap SYSRES volumes, volumes containing Catalogs, application data volumes, CICS, database volumes, TSO, RACF and Tape Management datasets, SMS-managed volumes and work volumes.

You could port your data to another planet with a longer day, but with FDRPAS you will be able to swap your data to faster more efficient disk storage non-disruptively.

FDRPAS allows an OS/390 or z/OS installation to:

• Swap disk volumes from their current locations to new disk hardware
• Move disk volumes within the installation for load balancing
• Do this volume movement without interrupting any system activity
• Do this volume movement during normal system operations
• Swap shared DASD on all sharing systems simultaneously

Swap of a disk volume is very simple. An FDRPAS monitor job or task is started on each system that has access to the volumes to be swapped. Then a simple FDRPAS job or console command is issued to request that an online volume be swapped to an offline disk device. The swap of a volume can be initiated on any system in the complex, and the other systems will automatically join in the swap operation. FDRPAS will verify that the target device is offline to all sharing systems, to insure that an active volume cannot be accidentally overlaid.

For each requested volume, FDRPAS will copy all allocated tracks on the volume to the new disk device (for inactive data sets, only used tracks are copied), while simultaneously detecting all updates to the original device; updated tracks will be re-copied if necessary. The new device remains offline during the copy, so that the copied data is protected until the swap is complete.

Once the copy is completed, FDRPAS will swap the devices so that all I/O is now directed to the new device and the old device is no longer in use. The new device is placed online and the old device is offline. The old device will be modified so that OS/390 will no longer be able to vary it online. When the system is re-IPLed, the new device will automatically come online.

Only the source and target devices are accessed by FDRPAS. It does not use any additional communication between systems. It does not require TCP/IP, VTAM, a dataset on a third disk volume or a coupling facility.

Swapping of a volume can be terminated at any time before the final swap without affecting the original device or any applications using it.

After a successful swap, the now-offline original device can be used as a point-in-time backup of the volume, at the point of the final swap. When all volumes in an old disk subsystem have been swapped to new disks, the old subsystem can be disconnected and removed.

FDRPAS can swap any OS/390 or z/OS volume, except for volumes containing active page and swap data sets. This includes the SYSRES volume, other system volumes, application data volumes, CICS volumes, database volumes, TSO volumes, SMS-managed volumes and work volumes.

SMALLER TO LARGER DISK DEVICE SUPPORT

FDRPAS can swap a smaller device to a larger device of the same type (ex: 3390-3 to 3390-9), automatically updating the VTOC and Indexed VTOC on all sharing systems.

FDRPAS IS EASY TO USE

Swapping a disk volume to a new device or creating a point-in-time backup is very simple.

On a single system, issue a console command such as:

S PASPROC.PROD01,PARM='SWAP TYPE= FULL/MOUNT VOL=PROD01,SWAPUNIT=25C0'

S PASPROC.MON1,PARM='MONITOR TYPE=SWAP/MOUNT SWAPUNIT=(25C*,3*)'

POINT-IN-TIME BACKUPS

FDRPAS can also be used to create non-disruptive point-in-time backups of disk volumes. The FDRPAS SWAPDUMP command can be used to start constantly updated images of one or more disk volumes, at some time before the backups are required. A single command to FDRPAS is then used to terminate the SWAPDUMP operation and create the offline point-in-time images of those volumes. FDRINSTANT, a feature of the FDR family of disk management software products, can be used to backup those offline images.

ISPF MONITORING PANELS

FDRPAS ISPF panels allow you to display volumes by volser, unit, storage group, controller serial number or subsystem ID. You can initiate FDRPAS swaps, monitor their progress, change pacing values dynamically, and (if required) terminate swaps. Multiple display formats are available.

Click here to view the sample swap output.

FDRPAS PERFORMANCE

The swap is accomplished with minimal impact on the performance of applications using the volumes being swapped. Applications continue to execute, unaware that the data movement is occurring or has completed. FDRPAS will dynamically manage the copy process in response to system activity (e.g., copying inactive datasets before active datasets and pacing the copy I/O), to minimize its effect on the system. By default, FDRPAS copies 15 tracks from the source to the target in each I/O. An FDRPAS SWAP will take about the same elapsed time as a normal full-volume disk-to-disk copy, unless there is a great deal of update activity on the volume being swapped.