Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 12:10:08 EST
From:         SOMITCW@VCCSCENT.BITNET
Subject:      MVS Allocation Recovery

 On Wed, 29 Jul 1992 23:56:59 CDT, NPAPE@VM1.TUCC.TRINITY.EDU said:
>How does your shop handle a production job which has gone into MVS
>allocation recovery for a disk drive?  Our applications programming
>manager wants to be called in all situations before any action is taken.

    The best approach now is to have the operator cancel the job.
 Your applications programming manager can only watch the operator
 reply CANCEL.  In the past the operator might have been able to
 recover.  In the future there will hopefully again be recovery.

    A brief history of disk allocation recovery.

    Over 15 years ago, the system would list offline devices and
 pending offline devices, and give the operator a reply ID.
 The operator would issue unload commands, change mount use,
 sometimes vary disk on or offline, and reply the address of SYSRES
 or any other device to the reply.  The system would process the
 unload commands and vary commands and then retry allocation.
 ( Note:  Back then, we used pending offline status to block
 allocation until IBM took the very useful feature away. )

    About 15 years ago IBM made some unfriendly changes.  They changed
 allocation recovery to only accept a reply of an offline device that
 was in the list originally displayed and hadn't been replied before
 and the job must be looking for public space or a private request
 must be satisfied with an offline request plus a few other quirks.
 Allocation recovery for disk was broke.  IBM was requested to fix it
 and they did.  Their response was to remove the words 'Allocation
 Recovery' from the console messages.

 ( This was about the same time that IBM decided that tape volumes
 should remain on the tape drives when jobs ended.  They finally
 fixed the system back.
 P.P.S.  If IBM is listening, thanks for fixing it back, but
 adding a JCL option to leave some tapes up and have others unload
 would have been better. )

 ( This was about the same time that they decided to drop support
 for CVOL catalogs in IEHPROGM.  They finally fixed the system back.
 P.P.S.  If IBM is listening, thanks for fixing IEHPROGM back,
 at the time we really needed it. )

 ( That was about the same time that they decided to disallow tape
 swaps to pending offline tape drives so you could no longer cause the
 bad from drive to be offline as UCB's swap in memory.  Never fixed. )

    About 2 years ago IBM received several complaints because with
 VATLST finally fixed, even the once in a blue moon theoretical
 successful allocation recovery for public work space was impossible.
 IBM decided to allow customers a chance to change the mount use of
 a disk volume and then reply.  We put their fix on last year here
 but it didn't work.  We are working on getting maintenance done again.
 If it still doesn't work, I will call IBM and ask them to try again.
 Why can't IBM just drop their bank of offline disk requirement and
 allow the operator to reply RETRY, WAIT, or CANCEL?  Of course they
 could go the other way and add HOLD or NOHOLD complications.
 ( P.P.S.  If IBM is listening, thanks for fixing VATLST and thanks
 for attempting to allow disk allocation recovery again.  It has
 been a long time. )

    While I'm complaining, IBM needs to fix the termination message
 NOT RECATLG.  The message means that IBM saved overhead of recata-
 loging a MODded data set because the volume list didn't change.
 The NOT RECATLG messages scares and confuses the users.
 Better messages would be RECATALOG NOT NECESSARY or RECATALOG NOT
 NEEDED.  Or at the worst, IBM could add the overhead and recatalog
 the data set and change the message to say RECATALOGED.
 If this is still a problem after a years worth of maintenance that
 we are applying has been completed, I will open a PMR with IBM.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU