FDRINSTANT Introduction Fast, minimally-disruptive, non-fuzzy backups of your z/OS data FDRINSTANT works in conjunction with hardware replication features such as EMC TimeFinder, Hitachi ShadowImage, IBM FlashCopy and Sun StorageTek SnapShot Copy, to reduce your backup window, and to virtually eliminate the service interruptions and application downtime commonly associated with taking regular backups.

Key Benefits of FDRINSTANT include:

• Backup your z/OS data cleanly, and with minimal disruption to your users and applications.
• Interact with Log Suspend and Consistent Backup to take “hot” backups of your DB2 data.
• Target specific application downtime, or reduce your entire backup window.
• Full volume or dataset restores as per normal backup.

FDRINSTANT is a cost-option to the FDR DASD Management Family, and can be utilised with the following modules:

• ABR (Automated and managed, full and incremental backup)
• FDR (Manual and ad-hoc, full Volume and dataset backup)
• FDRCOPY (Dataset level copy and move)

Multi-Platform Support

FDRINSTANT works in conjunction with the following vendor hardware replication features:

How Does It Work?

Although their methods of implementation differ, all of the supported hardware replication features listed above share the same common ability to create duplicate volumes, while your applications (CICS, TSO, Batch, etc.) continue to use the real data on the original online volumes. FDRINSTANT allows you to take non-disruptive FDR or ABR backups directly from those offline volumes.

• No need to shut down CICS/TSO online services for several hours while you take your backups...And no need to risk taking “fuzzy” backups of open datasets!
  
  
• No more serious delays in the start up of your overnight batch work, as you wait for your nightly backups to complete…And no more problems with backup “overruns” delaying the start up of online services.
  
  
• No need to worry about accommodating additional backups into an already tight backup window...And no more sleepless nights, worrying about how the latest long-running application will swallow up another hour of your backup window.

A typical FDRINSTANT backup would involve the following steps:

• Step 1: Quiesce your applications.
  
  
• Step 2: Create point-in-time, offline duplicates of your DASD volumes. This usually takes just a few seconds or minutes.
  
  
• Step 3: Re-start your applications.
  
  
• Step 4: Initiate your FDRINSTANT backups against the offline duplicates while your applications continue to use the online volumes. This process can reduce to just a few minutes the “downtime” normally associated with data backup.

Without FDRINSTANT, it is extremely difficult to take full advantage of the hardware replication features in your DASD Subsystem.

For example, in the diagram above, to backup the offline copy of ZOS001 with standard backup utilities, you would need to bring it online to your z/OS system. Before doing that, you would have to alter the name (volser) of the volume, because z/OS does not allow two disks with the same volser to be online at the same time. This then presents a further set of problems because renaming a volume destroys the complex connections between the VTOC/VVDS on the volume and the MVS ICF Cataloging system.

FDRINSTANT does not require the duplicate volume be brought online. It can access it across the S/390 channel while it remains offline to z/OS, thus eliminating all of the aforementioned problems with duplicate volsers and the potential for VTOC/VVDS and catalog discrepancies!

See the Tech Detail section for more information on how the process works with the individual hardware replication features.

Additional Features

• Consistent Backup
  Consistent point-in-time operations, available in some hardware replication features, allow the replication of multiple disks at a single consistent point-in-time. This ensures their I/O integrity by preventing applications such as DB2 and other similar applications from issuing dependent writes during the split/snap process. Once the group of offline duplicate volumes has been detached at a consistent point, FDRINSTANT can then take a “consistent backup” of your data from that group of offline volumes.
  
  
• DB2 Hot Backups
  Interfacing FDRINSTANT with DB2 Log suspend allows you to backup DB2 databases with the minimum of disruption and without having to close them down. The flexible restore process means that you can recover anything from a single tablespace to an entire DB2 system.
  
  
• Support For HSDM and ExHPDM
  FDRINSTANT includes support for Sun StorageTek’s High-Speed Data Mover (HSDM) and Extended High-Performance Data Mover (ExHPDM). See the FDRINSTANT Concepts & Facilities Guide for more details.

Faster, Compromise-Free Restores

Using FDRINSTANT to create your FDR or ABR backups does not introduce a compromise when it comes to restoring data sets or volumes. All of the same restore facilities that are available with “conventional” FDR and ABR backups are available with the backups you create with FDRINSTANT.

FDRINSTANT can, in fact, offer improvements on restore. If, for example, the offline point-in-time image of the volume is still available, it can be used as the source of the restore, even if the FDRINSTANT backup has already been written to tape. This can drastically reduce the amount of time required to restore your data.

FDRINSTANT with FDRCOPY

FDRCOPY is a utility within the FDR DASD Management system that allows you to copy (or move) datasets from one DASD volume to another. Most types of z/OS data set are supported, including Sequential, PDS, PDSE, DB2, VSAM and IAM.

FDRINSTANT can enhance the performance of FDRCOPY by using some of the advanced hardware replication features listed earlier to copy/move the disk tracks within the disk subsystem itself, without transferring tracks up and down the disk channel.



FDRCOPY is often used in place of IEBCOPY and is an ideal tool for the ad-hoc, day-to-day copying of datasets. The NEWI option is particularly useful for creating a new copy of an entire application with just a single control statement.

If you are planning a large-scale data migration project, or if you are looking to consolidate DASD volumes (e.g. moving several 3390-3’s onto a higher capacity 3390), please see the FDRPAS and FDRMOVE sections for more details on how to move large amounts of data with the minimum of disruption to your users.

For more introductory information on FDRINSTANT, see the Product Portfolio Sheet

For more comprehensive information on FDRINSTANT, please request a Concept & Facilities Guide

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