BCV4
BCV4 is easy to install and execute. A cloning task is set up using an intuitive ISPF based interface. In a few panels, you specify the details of the task, such as involved volumes, source and target subsystem name, ICF catalog options, DDF parameters and a few more. Then, BCV4 creates the entire job stream from start to finish. You can execute the jobs manually or use a job scheduler. This eliminates labor intensive, error prone manual work. Once set up, a clone task can be executed as often as needed.
BCV4 is used by a wide variety of customers with specific needs ranging from modest to very large and complex. Environment size doesn’t matter. Small companies with a single z/OS machine make excellent use of BCV4. A single administrator can make weekly clones and always keep the test systems up to date and available. BCV4 enables you to fully automate the cloning process using volume copies created with hardware-assisted copy facilities. It takes less than an hour and requires no downtime of the production system.
Larger companies typically run multiple IBM Z systems with hundreds of terabytes of data. But, cloning large Db2 data sharing groups is just as fast and easy as cloning a stand-alone system because the job stream of BCV4 exploits parallel processing. Even for vast environments, the volume clone itself is done instantaneously and BCV4 has your cloned system ready in record time. And again, no downtime required for production.
BCV4 uses installed hardware assisted fast copy tools, standard ADRDSSU, or existing backups to create copies of volumes from the source Db2 subsystems. It executes proprietary programs to rename and re-catalog all data sets on the target volumes. It completes this task in a fraction of the time needed by the standard z/OS utilities. After all source data is copied and available, BCV4 also changes the references to those names in the Db2 catalog, BSDS and log. It uses neither SQL nor any Db2 utility to perform these changes, and that‘s what makes it so fast. Users commonly report time savings of 90% and higher. When the target Db2 subsystem is brought up at the end of this process, it has renewed data and is ready to use.
