Global Variable backup dataset receives OPS3127S UPDATE FAILED during shutdowns at IPL

Products

• OPS/MVS Event Management & Automation

Issue/Introduction

Received the following error during IPL shutdown.  

OPS3127S VSAM READ UPDATE FAILED, RC=X'00000010', DDNAME=ddname
DSNAME=hlq.backup.dataset.name

This occurred multiple times during shutdown, causing times where the shutdown would halt during the IPL process.

these messages appear in syslog 

Cause

The error OPS3127S VSAM READ UPDATE FAILED, RC=X'00000010' occurred because SMSVSAM was terminated before the OPS/MVS region finished its shutdown tasks. Since the environment was configured with PLEXVARRLS=YES, the SMSVSAM task is a mandatory requirement for VSAM RLS operations. 

We saw in the log, for the reporting customer, that they were using PLEXVARRLS=YES, and hence the SMSVSAM task is required.   The log showed that SMS stopped it early in the process leading to the reported messages.  We then saw where SMSVSAM was subsequently started again and there were no more OPS3127S messages after that.

Resolution

To use VSAM RLS, all the following must be true:

• All the systems in the parallel sysplex that share the file must also use RLS
• The VSAM data set must be managed by SMS; therefore, SMS must be active
• The SMSVSAM started task must be active

In order to avoid this situation in the future the recommendation is to make SMSVSAM a prerequisite for another task later in the shutdown process. and it can even be after the JES2 shutdown without causing further problems.