Backing up your system

 

The method that you use to back up your system depends upon your backup strategy. If you do not have a strategy, review the information in Planning a backup and recovery strategy. After reviewing the information, determine how you should save your data.

 

Simple strategy

If you choose a simple strategy you can use the GO SAVE command to back up your system. The Save menu options of the GO SAVE command provide an easy method to back up your system. These Save menu options include option 21 to save your entire system, option 22 to save your system data, and option 23 to save your user data. Each of these options requires that your system be in a restricted state. This means that no users can access your system, and the backup is the only thing that is running on your system.

Use the GO SAVE command, menu option 21, to save your entire system. Then you can use the other GO SAVE command menu options to save the parts of your system that change regularly. In addition, you can use a variety of other save commands to save individual parts of your system.

If you choose a simple save strategy, review Overview of the GO SAVE command to see what parts of your system GO SAVE command, menu options 21, 22, or 23 save. Then skip to the topic, Preparing your media to save your system.

 

Medium and complex strategy

To help you get started with a medium or complex strategy follow these steps:

1. Draw a picture of your system similar to the one in Save commands and menu options. In your picture, break the section called "User Libraries" into smaller segments that match the way you plan to save user libraries.

2. Study the information in Save commands and menu options and in Manually saving parts of your system.

3. Determine how and when you plan to save each part of your system.

If you do not have time to do a full save, you can save your system while it is active. However, have a complete backup of your entire system (which requires a restricted state) before you use these advanced functions.

 

Information to back up your system

The method that you use to back up your system depends upon your backup strategy. If you do not have a strategy, review the information in Planning a backup and recovery strategy. After reviewing the information, determine how you should save your data.

Read the Code disclaimer information for important legal information.

• What's new for V5R4
  There have been new functions added for V5R4.

• Printable PDF
  View or download a PDF version of this Back up your system topic for viewing or printing.

• Before you save anything...
  Read this information before you save anything on your system.

• Preparing your media to save your system
  Use this information to select and manage the save media that you will use for all your save functions.

• Overview of the GO SAVE command
  Use the GO SAVE command to save your entire system or parts of your system that change regularly.

• Manually saving parts of your system
  Use this information to use save commands to save your system manually. This information applies if you use a medium or complex save strategy.

• Saving your system while it is active
  The save-while-active function allows you to use your system during all or part of the save process, that is, save your system while it is active.

• Backup programming techniques
  The programming techniques include recovering jobs, displaying status messages, and redirecting output from save and restore commands to an output file.

 

Parent topic:

Backing up and recovering your system

Related information
Backup and recovery FAQ