ICF Fundamentals

Course objectives
This course covers the way data sets are located and retrieved under OS/390 and z/OS.
The students will learn how to install and initialize disk volumes, and how to define and manage catalogs in an Integrated Catalog Facility (ICF) environment.
They will learn how to optimize ICF, and they will be enabled to perform indepth problem diagnosis and solving.

Audience
System programmers and storage managers.

Prerequisites
You need to master the concepts and techniques covered by our VSAM Fundamentals course.

Course contents

Count-Key-Data (CKD) track format

IPL bootstrap records and the VOL1 label

Using DFSMSdss to print tracks

Volume Table of Contents (VTOC) organization

VTOC and SMS

Installing and initializing DASD volumes

VTOC size calculation

Indexed VTOC: organization and space calculation

Using SPZAP to repair the VTOC

VVDS internal organization

VVDS definition

BCS internal organization

BCS definition

ICF structure: master catalog and user catalogs

Catalog error detection techniques

Recovering damaged BCS and VVDS entries

Catalog recovery techniques: restore, salvage, and repair (zapping!)

Backup and restore

Copying, splitting, merging, renaming, etc. of ICF catalogs

Using CAS and VLF to cache catalogs

(etc.)