New Hanover County
Information Technology
1) Models will be used for all applications performing VSAM delete/defines.
2) All model definitions for an application will be contained in a single job.
3) All models will be defined in the same VSAM catalog as the files they model.
4) All VSAM clusters, whether defined by model or not, will have Standard English text names for all components such as data, index, aix, etc.
5) A copy of all model jobs and FAVER reorg jobs will be saved each month as a record of file definition parameters, especially allocation sizes.
6) All VSAM files will be defines using DASD parameters such as CYLINDERS, TRACKS, or BLOCKS, not the records parameter. This is necessary for the required space monitoring procedures.
1) Both Tech Support and the programming staff will monitor VSAM catalogs for space problems on a monthly basis. A record of this monitoring will be maintained.
2) The programming staff will provide Tech Support with file size planning factors that can be used to predict the cyclical variation in application file sizes.
3) Tech Support will determine the requirements to define all ‘sort files’ across an arbitrary number of volumes and VSAM space.
4) A TEMPORARY file is any file that is not needed for processing during normal daily operations. A file that is needed as a space holder will not be a TEMPORARY file.
5) All files not defined as TEMPORARY may be left in the production catalog as a space holder.
1) Frequency of data set backups is determined on an application basis. This frequency is determined by the IT programming staff after consultation with the department that owns the data.
2) Backup retention period is determined by the Programming staff in consultation with the owners of the data and after considering the legal requirements for the data.
3) System files owned by Tech Support will be backed up and retained as determined by Tech Support.
4) In general, all active data will be backed up daily on an application basis. Unless otherwise specified, there will always be a minimum of 3 generations of backups: 3 dailies, 3 weeklies, and 3 monthlies.
5) Tape purge dates will be checked daily. Once a tape reaches its purge date, it will be recycled into the scratch pool.
6) All tapes for backups will come from the scratch pool.
7) ‘ROTATE’ tapes are a special case and will be swapped out on a quarterly basis.
8) In order to insure that no single failure can occur during the back-up and restore process that could damage all copies of the data being restored, we have devised a unique procedure that always insures that at least 2 copies of the data are on hand before a restore is undertaken.
9) Before a planned, intentional restore is undertaken, the Operator must insure that there are 3 valid copies of the data:
a) The file being restored.
b) Two copies of the file on tape or disk.
10) In the unlikely event that the first copy of the backup is destroyed, the remaining good copy will be duplicated prior to continuing the restore process. It is this action that insures that there are always 2 copies of the data on hand until a successful restore has been completed.