Restoring a damaged IBM Z Workload Scheduler file from backup

About this task

The VSAM data sets used by IBM Z Workload Scheduler must be error free if IBM Z Workload Scheduler is to work normally. If a VSAM data set has been damaged, then it must be restored from a backup copy.

When re-creating a VSAM data set from a backup, you should allocate a new data set. But keep the damaged data set for problem determination after normal IBM Z Workload Scheduler service is resumed. You need to either rename the damaged file so that you can use the same name for the new data set, or allocate the data set with a new name.

If you allocate the data set with a new name you must also change the IBM Z Workload Scheduler JCL procedure and all batch jobs that reference the damaged data set. You can update the batch jobs by editing affected members in the ISPF job-skeleton library.

The restore procedure varies a little, depending on which data set is damaged. These differences are explained in the following sections. All restore procedures assume that there is a usable backup available.

Note: If you restore a database file, AD, WS, OI, RD, or SI, IBM Z Workload Scheduler cannot recover updates made since the last backup. You should consider using the AUDIT statement to log accesses to these files so that you have a record of the updates that you need to reapply.

You can also try to access the file before you stop IBM Z Workload Scheduler and sort the list of items on the time of last update in descending order. Note the items changed since the last backup was created.