RTD | RealTime Defrag

RealTime Defrag (RTD for z/OS, RTD for DB2) provides automatic and easily controlled z/OS DASD volume maintenance for the 24×7 operating environment, without the disruption to production schedules which legacy defrag and volume maintenance products engender, and with high throughput due to its advanced multiple address space architecture.  Today the availability and reliability of your organization’s data is critical to its success. But finding the time required to keep your systems operating efficiently often strains a data center’s resources and its ability to meet service level agreements. In order to utilize available resources more efficiently, more and more computer centers are optimizing their disk space with RealTime Defrag (RTD).

RTD/zOS Version 8.6.0 is a complete replacement for RTD/zOS 8.5.0 and earlier releases, and includes the following optional features:

♦ PM – Preserve Mirror Support provides full support for devices using Remote Pair FlashCopy to maintain business continuity in z/OS environments with continuous dataset operations.  FRO is a pre-requisite for PM.

♦ FRO – The Fast Replication Option allows optimal I/O performance and reduced dataset enqueue contention by letting I/O operations run as a background task in the I/O device controller, rather than being executed by channel programs in an RTD address space. Since the operation is almost instantly complete from the viewpoint of RTD processing, datasets are enqueued for significantly shorter periods when data movement takes place. FRO supports FlashCopy V2 devices.

♦ MAS – Multiple Address Space Support allows concurrent processing of up to 28 volumes and circumvents the MVS TIOT size limit which restricts the number of allocations (about 3,200) within an address space.

The main new features of RTD/zOS Version 8.6.0 are as follow:

Started Task (STC)

• • Global PAUSE Function. A new Global Level Function has been introduced to allow volume processing to stop at a certain time in each hour over specified periods. This function is intended to provide CPU relief at critical times. It does not cause processing to stop completely (and later restart from the first volume) as for the Null Configuration, but stops processing at its current point and continues from that point.
  • Multivolume RELEASE. The RELEASE function has with the Volume Level MVRELEASE parameter re-introduced the ability to perform RELEASE for the final volume in a supported multivolume dataset.
  • RELEASE Early Full Dataset Detection. The RELEASE function has been further improved to detect a dataset with maximum three extents that is full and to skip it without performing the full filtering process (with catalogue lookups etc.) This can significantly reduce processing time for RELEASE if many such datasets are present on a volume.
  • Automatic deletion of RTDLOG Archive files. The existing feature to delete old Sequential Log files on the basis of age via a Days parameter set via the RTDISPF dialog has been extended to allow similar deletion of old (VSAM LDS) LOG Archive files.
  • Automatic deletion of Statistics Archive files. The existing feature to delete old Sequential Log files on the basis of age via a Days parameter set via the RTDISPF dialog has also been extended to allow similar deletion of old (VSAM LDS) Statistics Archive Copy files.
  • The minimum number of free extents required in order to perform DEFRAG on a volume specified by the TMA/CMADEFRAGMIN Volume Level SET parameters has been increased from 50 to 999.
  • The Dataset Level SET PERCENTFREE/USED parameters have been renamed RLSPARTFREE/USED. The PERCENTFREE/USED Include/Exclude parameters at Dataset Level are now correctly implemented. Installations using any of these parameters should re-translate their Dataset Level members.
  • The MAXDATA licensing option may now be used on more than one RTD image when running RTD/zOS and RTD/Db2.

RTDISPF Dialog

• • The Global Control Specifications panel has been extended to provide “days” parameter fields for the LOG Archive and Statistics Archive Copy fields to support the automatic deletion function in the STC.
  • The Export option on the LOG display/export dataset selection list panel has been extended to allow specification of one or more search strings to select records for display or export more specifically.
  • The LOG display/export dataset selection list panel now supports the Command Line command “EXT” to allow selection of data from multiple LOG Archive datasets via Date/Time parameters. LOG Filtering and string search may also be specified as for the single dataset display/export function.
  • The Statistics display/export dataset selection list panel has been extended to support the “EXT” Command Line command enabling selection of data from multiple Statistics Archive Copy datasets via Date parameters. A filter option (as for the ROUSTAC/X batch programs) is also supported. Additionally, HSM migrated datasets may optionally be included and the type of data (Active, Simulated or Both) may be specified. The Dialog Options panel now supports a new field to specify a generic or specific Statistics Filter member, similarly to the existing LOG Filter member field.

Your current RTD/zOS Version 8.1.0, 8.3.0 or 8.5.0 password IS VALID for RTD/zOS Version 8.6.0. If you are running RTD/RIO Version 8.0.0 or earlier, your password IS NOT VALID for RTD/zOS Version 8.6.0. Please send the output from the z/OS operator command “D M=CPU” to support@dino-software.com. Your new password will be generated and sent to you.

Should you wish to test the Preserve Mirror Option, the Fast Replication Option (FRO) with support for FlashCopy Version 2 or Multiple Address Space (MAS) support, please contact support@dino-software.com so that we can provide you with the appropriate password data.

RTD End of Service Dates are:

♦  Product maintenance support for RTD/z/OS Version 8.5.0x will terminate on 01 September 2020.
♦  Product maintenance support for all RTD versions prior to RTD/zOS Version 8.3.0x has been terminated.

* RTD is owned by INTERCHIP AG

RTD/zOS