Dino-Software, LLC - Home of T-Rex - diagnose, report, backup and repair clusters and ICFcomponents in an OS/390 environment

T-REX is a mainframe utility to analyze, diagnose, report, backup and repair clusters and ICF (Integrated Catalog Facility) components in an OS/390 environment. T-REX can also synchronize your Tape Management System with your ICF catalogs. The efficient operation and allocation of IMS, CICS, DB2, SMP/E and VSAM user data sets all rely on IBM’s Access Method Services (IDCAMS) commands. VSAM objects have been, and are presently a critical part of today’s complex computing environment. Keyed VSAM objects with broken indexes, missing catalog entries, data sets cataloged to incorrect volumes and/or missing data sets (catalog entries without corresponding physical data sets) all contribute to production delays, system downtime and complicate disaster recovery. The objective of T-REX is to provide a comprehensive package of utilities to address these concerns that is both "user friendly" and powerful. Today's typical systems programmer does not have the time and training to monitor and react to periodic application and catalog problems. IBM's IDCAMS utilities address some problems, but fall far short of the dynamic functionality that is often needed in today's complex computing environment. T-REX complements the VSAM and catalog management commands in IBM's IDCAMS utility. It also provides new functionality dedicated to disaster recovery issues, enhanced VSAM support for application datasets and management of ICF catalog components, as well as enhancing the existing IDCAMS functionality. The TMC support enables users of T-REX to have a central point of control to synchronize their Tape Management Systems with their ICF catalogs. Diagnostic and repair logic are run from the TMC to the ICF catalog and from the catalog to the TMC.

Features and Functions

Access Method Services/Extended consists of the following commands – EXPORT, IMPORT, DRIMPORT, REORG, DIAGNOSE, EXAMINE, ICFRU, DELETE, PRINT, MODIFY, ZAP, LISTCAT, INTEGRITYCHECK, ANALYZE, REFORMAT, REPRO, REPORT, AUDIT and DISPLAY. T-REX provides a number of commands to analyze and correct the structural integrity of VSAM clusters and the MVS catalog environment. The product will recover catalog entries in the event that one or more components are restored to an earlier version and tools are provided to view and manipulate VSAM clusters and catalogs.

T-REX was designed from the outset to multi-task many of its functions. This allows parallel processing of tasks, which reduces elapsed time and increases throughput. Neither IDCAMS nor any other competing Access Method Services or Catalog Administration product was designed with this approach from inception. T-REX is not only unmatched in its speed, but it is also the only product to have DYNAMIC capabilities which place the calculation of the performance parameters squarely on the product. No user intervention is needed to allow the product to perform at its optimal capabilities. No other product, except T-REX will automatically adjust and grow as your IBM hardware configuration is upgraded or changed. T-REX will scan your current environment and set its values appropriately. This means if your DR site has a different mainframe, the same JCL can be used for running T-REX. The product will automatically determine the current hardware setup and adjust all T-REX’s internal performance parameters.

T-REX can aid you in your drive towards continuous availability with the BCS REORG IN-PLACE. No longer will you need to pause any online system or stop batch processing to reorganize a user catalog. The catalog can be shared and OPEN to any number of systems within your SYSPLEX. T-REX ensures complete data integrity during the REORG process.

With the implementation of “Enhanced Catalog Sharing”, IBM has utilized the Coupling Facility to share dataset/catalog information in the SYSPLEX. Unlike older products, T-REX has always fully exploited this feature to ensure cross system VVDS update integrity. Despite this requirement being out for several years other software vendors have only recently retrofitted their older technology. Processing the VVDS outside the Coupling Facility may result in loss of data and a broken catalog environment.

During disaster recovery testing, time is of the essence. T-REX provides the ability to dynamically “redefine”, restore and initialize ICF catalogs and VVDS’s concurrently. T-REX allows you to selectively IMPORT specific BCS records by data set name, record type, volume, and devicetype. Options are also available to initialize catalogs with empty generation data group (GDG) bases. Some shops restore the entire catalog environment and spend hours cleaning up catalog discrepancies after restoring a subset of their original environment or specific applications. The "selective restore/initialization" facilities in T-REX eliminate this tedious task.

“Catalog scrubbing” should become a thing of the past. Once the catalog environment is established, individual data sets are then restored using the user’s preferred data mover (DF/DSS, FDR, etc.). A common use for this capability at a DR site is to redefine all user catalogs, establish the ALIAS environment, and restore your tape

definitions to each user catalog. All catalog entries defined to tape will be restored. Even GDGs can be dissected and rebuilt to only include generations defined to tape. GDGs which result with no generations can be restored or skipped. All other catalog records can be skipped thus eliminating the need to “scrub” the catalogs.

In the event of a DASD hardware failure, recovery of the volume is usually accomplished by restoring the latest backup of the device. Restoration "back levels" all existing data sets and catalogs that physically reside on the device. A back-leveled catalog not only affects data sets on the current volume, it may potentially affect all other volumes in the shop. Updates to the catalog since the backup was taken, should be reapplied to ensure that data sets are accessible. Access Method Services/Extended ICFRU command provides support for applying SMF updates to a BCS from SMF data collected on multiple systems. T-REX also allows the user to adjust the timestamp in catalog records by CPUID to allow for differences in clock settings. The output produced by SMF forward recovery is a new "unleveled" version of the catalog. Diagnostics are available to test the integrity of the new BCS before committing to the new copy.

IDCAMS provides a facility called LISTCAT to select and display catalog entries and their relationships. IBM utilizes SVC26 to obtain catalog information. This process is extremely slow. Access Method Services/Extended LISTCAT facility processes the BCS as a simple VSAM cluster. This is the most efficient way to obtain catalog information. This approach is very successful in reducing the elapsed time for catalog queries vs. IBM’s LISTCAT. T-REX provides the user with approximately 30 different selection keywords to select data sets, which may cause potential problems - over allocation of data set space, excessive splits, data sets in multiple extents, etc. The number of selection keywords, above and beyond the ones provided via IDCAMS, is limited to useful keywords that are used most often. T-REX LISTCAT process can also be used to generate IDCAMS DEFINE and/or DELETE control cards for each selected entry. This combines the powerful selection criteria with control card generation for an extremely flexible feature.

Backup integrity is paramount when recovering keyed VSAM data sets and catalogs. IDCAMS, DF/DSS, HSM and other third party vendors extract records through the objects index. If the index is broken, these utilities may give a successful completion code while obtaining an incomplete backup (missing records). T-REX bypasses the index and uses VSAM record management and proprietary algorithms to selectively backup the object. This algorithm is a vast improvement over other backup facilities and it is the fastest way to obtain a complete backup. The T-REX EXPORT command provides security against index corruption while reducing the size of the backup file, the total number of output I/Os, and total elapsed time all while stressing the importance of backup integrity. The user has the option of implementing simultaneous, concurrent backups against different catalogs, VVDS's and keyed clusters or single threading the process. Concurrent multitasking facilities are also available when reconstructing these components. The user may elect to restore certain records from the backup, modify existing records for disaster recovery, or reconstruct the entire component. The T-REX EXPORT command should be used for daily backups of user catalogs, VVDS’s and critical data sets.

IBM does a very good job of detecting mismatches between the BCS, VTOC and the VVDS. However they provide almost no support to automate the correction of problems. T-REX DIAGNOSE command provides a dynamic multitasking invocation of IDCAMS diagnose to detect standard problems. Multitasking support for the invocation of IDCAMS EXAMINE command is also available for keyed VSAM clusters and catalogs. T-REX also provides the functionality to correct the discrepancies with the INTEGRITYCHECK command. AUTOFIX functionality dynamically corrects problems as they are detected. Optionally, IDCAMS control cards can be generated to correct discrepancies at a later time. Keep in mind that IDCAMS control cards does not address all possible discrepancies and AUTOFIX may be the only way to correct some problems. INTEGRITYCHECK also provides a cross-reference of related catalog dependencies to aid in catalog recovery. Additional features include usercatalog alias validation and resynchronization, VVDS space map validation and alias reorganization.

The T-REX AUDIT command provides a comprehensive; BCS to tape management / tape management to BCS, catalog validation. T-REX will identify “cataloged” data sets that reside on tape and are unknown to your Tape Management System. The TMC is cross checked with the system catalog to determine the disconnected tape catalog entries. Additionally, T-REX can identify entries known to your Tape Management System that are uncataloged in the associated BCS. In this case, the TMC is cross checked with the system catalogs to determine the uncataloged tape datasets.

IBM provides the ability to print hex and character representations of cluster and catalog records. IDCAMS selection criteria is very limited while T-REX provides a more "robust" selection. The T-REX PRINT command allows the selection and printing of records based on key, generic key (including wildcard selection), RBA (relative byte address), FROMADDRESS/TOADDRESS, and control interval. Modification of selected records is also accomplished via an “AMASPZAP-like” interface through the ZAP command. These T-REX facilities support all VSAM cluster types as well as ICF catalog components.

In addition to ISPF panels, T-REX also has a TCP/IP interface for a Windows or Linux workstation. This console can submit T-REX jobs to the mainframe and obtain job output for review on the PC.