Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi,

We've created a test data-set, unknowingly one of my team-member had changed some records in a data-set. Is there any TSO command or a way out to retireve the older dataset ?

The simple answer to your question is z/OS doesn't maintain versions of datasets.

Is there any TSO command or a way out to retireve the older dataset ?

Hopefully, they (your teammate) made a backup of the data first . . .

If not, it is most likely gone. You could talk with your storage management people and see if there might be a backup frmo when the Disaster Recovery backups were made . . .

If I read between the lines and see what the new team members have done, at times, at my shop, your data is possibly gone. On the other hand, there are some possibilities:

1. Is your site using a product like HSM? Yes? - your data-set might have just been saved under HSM policies and you might just recover it. BUT - for an end-user data-set this possibility is distant.

/Off topic
2. This is not relevant here, however, for a curious mind - "data" is never deleted, all that is done is VTOC updated. Actually, physically nothing happens - only the pointers to the data are removed and that's why, as an end user, we don't see the data.

If you want to test, allocate a dataset using ABSTR and have some easily recognisable data into the dataset. Delete the dataset. Reallocate the dataset using ABSTR. And - whoila - You should then be able to see the data that you added before deleting and reallocating the dataset . If it's not possible to allocate the dataset without a close being performed, then after reallocating the dataset use the DFDSS print command and you will see the data.

/Off topic

I don't want to hijack the topic. But, what is ABSTR.

Thanks. I could not find the back-up. Had to create the test-data again.

Thanks for the follow up, Pragya.