Re: File-Record locks

["Buck Calabro" <buck.calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike wrote:
> The save that is done nightly is sometimes incomplete
> because a record or file was locked at the save time.

In the old days, the only jobs which would lock a file like that were
interactive.  Ending the interactive subsystem would kill all the
interactive jobs and remove the locks.  Today is a different story
with web applications, ODBC/JDBC and so forth making the machine more
like a 24 x 7 operation than ever before.  In this environment, you
need to be very much aware that you probably don't have a perfect
backup because transactions are partially written to disk (i.e. the
header may be updated but not all the detail records)  Commitment
control helps in that regard, and as such deserves mention in a
'backup' thread.

In any event, it may be difficult to get all the files in all the
libraries synchronised to one single point unless your applications
have a way to tell the web/ODBC, etc that they are 'unavailable.'
This would be something the application designers built in, and not an
IBM command.  If you can bring the whole box down briefly, Save While
Active might help you.  Research that well; especially look up Al
Barsa's posts on the topic, but read the fine Backup and Recovery
manuals, too.

Finally, consider brute force.  If you have a dozen or so files that
you simply can't relinquish, use CPYF to copy them to a 'backup'
library.  You'll be able to save the 'backup' library because no
application will be using it.  The copy can run relatively quickly
because you won't have any logical files built over the target files;
you'll only copy the physicals.  Put those CPYFs in a CL and call that
CL in your backup routine before doing the SAVLIBs.  You won't get the
production files because they're locked, but you'll get *most* of the
records in the 'backup' library version.  Only most, because there is
a brief time between CPYF and SAVLIB where someone will make changes
to the production files which are not reflected in the backup copy.

I hope some of these ideas add value to the discussion.
  --buck