How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 years



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How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 years

Postby sganja » Wed Feb 06, 2013 9:16 pm

Hi All,

I am trying to create a Tape files with retention period of 99 years from a monthly job. Following is the scenario.
Eg:
Job runs on year : retention period(year)
2013 : 2112
2014 : 2113

Known key words are RETPD and EXPDT
RETPD: is supporting upto 27 years only.
EXPDT : With using of EXPDT=99000, Its became like hard coding of retention period which is not the case I required.

Please let me know is there any other key words available which can satisfy my requirement. Please help in creating a tape files with retention period of 99 years from the date of execution of job.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby Akatsukami » Wed Feb 06, 2013 9:27 pm

There are no other keywords, as a brief perusal of the JCL Reference would have told you. Note that specifying EXPDT=99000 does not retain the tape for 99 years; this is an invalid date which has significance to various tape management systems. If you really find coding the expiration too tedious for words, your scheduling package or, at worst, a programette or a *Sort control card ought to modify it suitably.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby steve-myers » Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:03 pm

  • It used to be that data on tape deteriorated fairly quickly. After a few years (5?) the chances of retrieving the data became quite low. Sometime in the last 10 years I recall reading an article about a project to retrieve data from tapes created in the 1960s had quite a lot of trouble with
    • Media deterioration.
    • The data was recorded in EBCDIC, but they were using ASCII machines.
    • Finding tape drives that would read the tapes was difficult.
    • Documentation about the format of the data was poor.
  • It seems to me that tape drives in 2112 (if tape type technology is still being used) will not be able to read the tape.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby sganja » Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:13 pm

I Agree with you Steve. But its is the requirement and hv to satisfy it :) . We are searching for different options to get it done.

Hi Akatsukami,
I tried with EXPDT= 99002, 99360. Tapes are getting created but every time the retention is fixing to 2099 year only. its not picking to 2112.

What other design can we implement to get it done.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby Akatsukami » Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:19 pm

EXPDT is expiration date, not retention period. Unless you have windowing options set, a 2-digit year will be implicitly prefixed with "20", thus the behavior that you see.

As I said, write a tiny piece of Rexx or a *Sort control card to modify the JCL.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby Robert Sample » Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:32 pm

If your site is using a tape management system, find out how to code a tape for permanent retention. This is not going to be 99 years, but then there is no way that I am aware of under the current z/OS environment to accomplish what you want to do, anyway.

And back in the 80's I had to access some tapes that were 5 to 10 years old. IIRC, the success rate for reading tapes 5 to 10 years old was about 40% -- and it dropped off as the tape aged. Realistically, if your tapes are readable in the year 2023, you will be very lucky -- forget 2112.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby Akatsukami » Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:49 pm

Robert Sample wrote:If your site is using a tape management system, find out how to code a tape for permanent retention.

I don't believe that a tape management system is required; the bogus date 99366 is interpreted as "never scratch",
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby steve-myers » Wed Feb 06, 2013 11:02 pm

EXPDT=2113/001 might work.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby sganja » Wed Feb 06, 2013 11:14 pm

Expdt=99366 is just like non exist date and tape dataset will never get delete.
EXPDT=2113/001 is hard coding the date. It will work for today. If the job executed after 1 month this option will not be correct.
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Re: How to create Tape file with Retention Period of 99 year

Postby Akatsukami » Wed Feb 06, 2013 11:18 pm

Ribbono shel Olam! I can't believe, even in this day and age, that no one at your site is capable of handling so trivial a piece of programming :roll: What does your JCL have, if anything, for EXPDT or RETPD now?
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