Save while Active (SWA) used to make an object backup when it is used by another job. What often becomes a question is what is the difference between *LIB and *SYNCLIB. If the object you want to backup is in one library, the *LIB and *SYNCLIB parameters have no effect (you can use *LIB or *SYNCLIB). The difference is seen when we will back up more than one libraries.

Note: Backup more than one libraries can be done to tape media only. To backup using *SAVF cannot be done for more than one library with one command.

Okay, so what’s the difference between *LIB and *SYNCLIB when backing up more than one library?

• *LIB – backup objects that being used by another job to get a check point for each library.
• *SYNCLIB – backup objects that is being used by another job to get a check point for the entire library that is backed up.

What is the checking point function? Check points aim to recover data when a disaster occurs in a production system.

For example:

We will back up all the objects in the SOOLDAT and SOOLGPL (generic SOOL*) libraray using tape media library. I will give a sample log of the backup results (red highlight is the difference).

Save while Active *LIB

Save while Active *SYNCLIB

It can be seen that *LIB processes check points based on each library while *SYNCLIB check points are processed from the whole process of all backuped libraries.