Defiantly no stand alone time is needed to consolidate SMS Storage Groups (SG), and, dataset sets do not have to be moved.
You are correct. Move the volumes from SG C, D, and E, to SG B, then change the SG ACS routine to assign those SG's to B. You've got it! All the work can be done ahead of time, and activated when it's convenient for you! SMS is dynamic. It can be backed out by simply activating the previous SCDS in this case. I have around 4 validation & test steps before I implement a change of this type. Takes longer, but I don't like failure. Just make sure to get ALL the volumes, and all the SET SG stmts in the SG ACS. You can test the new SMS configuration before you activate by using ISMF 7.4 and several test scenarios. I have a test acs routine for each type of dataset we have (test Qual Prod, VSAM, Seq, PDs, PDSE, DB2...). The test result will tell you how and where each dataset will be allocated. If anything is out of place, you will know before activating so that you can fix it. Late last year I consolidated about 5 SMS Storage Groups, and am planning on consolidating several more this year. If ALL datasets from one (or more) storage groups are to be included, then all the work can be done in an inactive SCDS, then activated. Takes a while moving the volumes. Just be sure that all volumes get moved to the new Storage Group. Making the ACS changes is easy enough. Moving these SG's (within an inactive SDCD) containing about 500 volumes took me about a few hours. Then another hour or so to verify... Translate, validate, and test using ISMF. After which, I activate, then validate everything is okay. No one was even aware, and there was no downtime. One function that ISMF does not have that I wish it did... a volume move function from one SG to another (or, maybe I just don't know about it). By the way, you did an excellent job researching this, and, have the aptitude for this type of work. You mentioned that you're not in the Storage Admin group. What group are you in? Mike Wilkins Accenture Best Buy Technology Group mike.wilk...@bestbuy.com -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Rebecca Martin Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 4:44 PM To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Subject: Consolidate Storage Groups We are a small shop with a big SMS mess as far as the ACS routines and number of storage groups. We have over 80 storage groups for about 10TBs of DASD and 3 LPARS (production, development, systems). It evolved of a long time and without any rational reasons. Right now there is some momentum for fixing these issues and changing mind sets. The storage admin believes that he has to have stand alone time to consolidate any of the storage groups because he believes the datasets have to be moved. I am not part of the small storage group, but I would really like to see us clean up the SMS environment and get down to around 15 to 20 storage groups. I did a lot of searching, both the manuals and archives, and didn't find anything that suggested moving the datasets was a requirement. From one manual - I think it was the DFSMS Storage Guide - it looked like you could just reassign all the volumes in 1 pool to another. There was a caution about getting all volumes that contain multivolume datasets but other than that, what are the gotchas? Is it that easy? Can I reassign all volumes in pool C, D, and E to pool B and then just update the ACL routines to make sure everything that was being assigned to C, D and E gets assigned storage group B? Since we have about 10 storage groups defined for volumes on our sandbox, we do have groups to experiment with. But before suggesting that we start this effort, instead of continuing to put it off due to difficulty in getting large amounts of stand alone time, I'd know what is really feasible and what pit falls we need avoid. TIA Rebecca ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
