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In the Clouds with DFSMSdss – Part 2

By Alexis Kapica posted 3 days ago

  

Check out Part 1 of the “In the Clouds with DFSMSdss” here!

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Cloud Object Versioning: More protection, More confidence.

We see basic versioning in everyday life; that word doc or slide deck that might have three to four or even more edit versions with changes. Maybe you don’t have multiple copies of the same but slightly different file, and you are using a shared online editing tool to make edits; the ability to look at the change history on that document allows you to pull a specific version that you need.

Now, you can imagine how useful Object versioning can be in terms of protecting and recovering your data on the IBM Z platform. Object versioning is a powerful function that provides a more resilient safeguard against data loss, corruption, and accidental deletion.

DFSMS understands the importance of this function and has enhanced the DSS Direct to Cloud solution to add Cloud Object Versioning support! DSS ensures that every backup sent to cloud object storage is held as a unique version regardless of storage provider.

Key Benefits of Cloud Object Versioning:

Data Protection

  • Safeguard your backups from accidental or malicious changes. Each version is immutable, ensuring nothing gets overwritten or lost.

Data Recovery

  • Need to roll back to a previous state? You control the desired version of a backup with precision and confidence.

Data Integrity

  • Maintain a complete history of your backups, ensuring traceability across your cloud storage.

Simplification

  • You no longer have to use the system variables to create unique dump names for manual versioning.
  • No need to manually manage deleting older versions if the object storage provider supports maintaining a specific number of versions.

Overall…

Cloud Object Versioning is more than just a feature--it is a strategic upgrade to your data protection and recovery toolkit. With DFSMSdss leading the way, your backups are safer, smarter, and more resilient than ever! 

Now, let’s dive a little deeper into how to use the DSS Direct to Cloud Object Versioning support!

How It Works

  • Versioning ON: When enabled, your cloud container (bucket) stores multiple versions of the same backup. Remember: each backup consists of multiple objects.
  • Unique Identifiers: DFSMSdss tracks the collection of unique objects and assigns the backup a Dump Version ID that is used to reference a version of a backup.
  • No Overwrites: Repeated backups don’t overwrite existing data; rather, they create new versions.
  • Accessing Versions: Retrieve a specific version of a backup using new keyword DUMPVERSIONID or identify the backup using the new relative version keyword BACKVERSION(n)

Using Versioning with DFSMSdss

During DUMP
Simply specify new DSS keyword VERSION. Once the backup is stored in the cloud, DFSMSdss generates a unique DUMPVERSIONID, a 32-character string that identifies the backup.

ADR619I(002)-CLDDR(01), DUMP VERSION ID CREATED IS: 007C9649E446AE43E69D248808D12489

During RESTORE
Use the DUMPVERSIONID keyword to restore a specific version by specifying the 32-byte unique dump id generated at DUMP time.

DUMPVERSIONID(007C9649E446AE43E69D248808D12489)

Prefer not to track IDs? Use BACKVERSION(n):

  • BACKVERSION(0) = latest version (default, no extra cost)
  • BACKVERSION(2) = second previous version (requires at least 3 versions)

Listing Versions
The CLOUDUTILS command has been enhanced to help you identify your versioned backups.

Simply use CLOUDUTILS LIST VERSIONS to display all current versions in the cloud, along with their DUMPID and last modified timestamp.

ADR605I (001)-CUTIL(01), THE FOLLOWING DUMP DATA SETS WERE FOUND

                          DSS.LOGICAL.SAMPLE1

                              DUMP ID:  007C9649E446AE43E69D248808D12489

                              MODIFIED: 2025/10/27 03:52:55

                              DUMP ID:  007C964CABDB5F204C9D248808D92489

                              MODIFIED: 2025/10/27 04:05:20

                              DUMP ID:  007C964CB45B8582A29D248808D12489

                              MODIFIED: 2025/10/27 04:05:30

Note: For true immutability, you need to record the Version ID when you create the DSS dump and use that for recovery. Using CLOUDUTILS LIST VERSIONS or BACKVERSION(n) will include all versions that are already created, even any versions incidentally or maliciously created; so, recording and monitoring Version IDs as you create them is an important security step.

What You’ll Need

  • Provider file updates are required to ensure we are describing versioning correctly to Cloud Data Access (CDA).
  • PTFs for OA67510
  • PTFs for OA67781

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We would love to hear your thoughts this new enhancement! Leave a comment on this blog post, start a discussion on the DFSMS Community Page, or join Mainframe Data Management LinkedIn group to discuss there!

Check out the Game Changing Series for more information on CDA Object versioning.

Check out our Cloud Data Access content solution page to learn more about the CDA provider file.

Authors:        

Issak Sanchez

Ernesto Figueroa

Alexis Kapica

Editor:

Barbara McDonald

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2 comments
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Comments

ERNESTO FIGUEROA
22 hours ago

@Luc, Thanks for your comment.  APAR OA67510 is an enhancement to the Direct to Cloud (DTC) solution, this weblink is the correct publication link as it is a collection of all DTC publication updates in one place.

Luc Martens
yesterday

Nice!

Could it be that APAR OA67510 has a wrong publication link in it?