Duplicating Media

BRMS can assist in marking volumes or items for duplication

It is important to have current backups for every IBM i system. If it is also important, it may be desirable to keep more than one version of some of the backups that are performed on a system. BRMS  can assist in marking volumes or items for duplication in media policies in two ways:

1. Set the Mark volumes for duplication field to *YES for save media. (Media can also be manually marked for duplication in WRKMEDBRM option 18=Mark for duplication). This will assist the user in creating duplicate media.  The data and save history for all the saved items on the media will be duplicated.
2. Set the Mark history for duplication field to *YES for a saved item (Individual saved items can also be manually marked for duplication in WRKMEDiBRM  option 18=Mark for duplication). This will assist the user in creating duplicate saved items.  The data and save history for specific saved items will be duplicated.

Two items to be aware of when duplicating media are:

1. Duplication can be specified on BRMS save commands (SAVxxxBRM) and in media policies by selecting option 2 from the Work Policy using BRM (WRKPCYBRM) screen for type *MED. 
2. The media duplication and save history duplication are independent. When both Mark volumes for duplication and Mark history for duplication have been specified, both DUPMEDBRM VOL(*LIST/*SEARCH/VOLUME ID) and DUPMEDBRM VOL(SCHHST) MUST be performed before volumes will expire. 

For more information about media duplication see the following topics:

• Allow Append of Multiple Parallel Volumes During DUPMEDBRM - Q1AALWMFDP
• Allow Volumes that are Marked for Duplication to be Moved
• Duplicating a BRMS Volume Set of More Than 300 Volumes
• Duplicating Media from IBM ProtecTIER
• Duplicating Media of Native OS Saves
• DUPMEDBRM with Generic File Group Names
• Include Both Original Save Media and Duplicate Save Media in Recovery Volume Summary Report - Q1AIGNRDUP
• Media Policy Fields Move Class, Move Policy, and Retention Reflected to Auto-duplicated Media
• Support Multiple Batch Jobs for the DUPMEDBRM Command
• Support to Allow Duplicate Media to have the Same Expiration as the Original Media
• Use Compaction on Tapes Duplicated with DUPMEDBRM
• WRKSPLFBRM Support to Display History Created Through Duplication
• Using BRMS to Duplicate Another Systems Media
• Automatically Duplicating Media after BRMS Backup has Completed
• Using the DUPMEDBRM Command to Duplicate Specific File Sequence Numbers From a Serial Set