Setting Up Synchronization

Once the replication roles are set and Robot HA has been initialized, you can synchronize your objects to ensure those defined on the production system are also defined on the backup system.

Synchronizing default objects and user profiles

Before synchronizing anything else, you should ensure that all objects and user profiles defined on the production system exist on the backup system. This helps avoid OS authority errors when synchronizing and restoring objects to the backup system. A job, *PVTAUT, will work together with the library/group sync jobs to ensure private authorities are synced. The *PVTAUT job will process through QAUDJRN entries to determine which authorities to sync. When the library or group job runs, we will apply authority changes to your backup.

To accomplish this, synchronize your replication jobs and user profiles from your production system to your backup system.

NOTE: System values QPWD* should be set the same on both the source and the target. Changes on some of these system values take effect after IPL.

  1. Select option 1, Synchronization Attributes, from the Robot HA Main Menu.

  2. Review the list to make sure all profiles and items that should've been added during initialization are accounted for and ready for replication.

    Note: By default, Robot HA provides you with the following synchronization attributes: *AUTL (Authorization List), *CFG (Configuration), *USRPRF (User Profile), RBTHALIB (Robot HA Library), and RSFUSER (RSF User). In these steps, you'll replicate all five.

    Note: *AUTL, *CFG, and *USRPRF use QAUDJRN for journaling. Ensure that the journal receivers for QAUDJRN are in the correct library. They should not be moved to a different library once sycnhronization has started.

  3. Press F13 to display the Change RHA User Options panel. From here, you can set user defaults.

  4. Check that the following choices are specified:

    • Run in batch = *YES
    • Job description = RSFHA
    • Job description library = RSFUSER

  5. Press Enter to return to the previous panel. This changes the default values for your user profile.

  6. Type option 8 next to the *USRPRF replication job that was defined, then press Enter. Wait for the job to finish running replication.

    Note: Using option 8 submits a job to a job queue, which will run replication or synchronization for the selected items.

  7. Type option 8 next to the *AUTL replication job, then press Enter. Wait for the job to finish running replication.

  8. Type option 8 next to the *CFG replication job, then press Enter. Wait for the job to finish running replication.

  9. Type option 8 next to the *RSFUSER replication job, then press Enter. Wait for the job to finish running replication.
  10. Type option 8 next to the *RBTHALIB replication job, then press Enter. Wait for the job to finish running replication.

After you've submitted your profiles for replication, you can press F9 to view running replication jobs, then press Enter to view the Work with Job Queue panel. This shows the job currently waiting in the job queue.

When synchronizing user profiles for the first time, you may see some errors. This is often just because objects needed by one or more user profile haven't been replicated to the backup system yet. You can safely ignore these errors.

Synchronizing your Backup system to your Production system

After your user profiles, authorization lists, and configuration are all synchronized to the backup system, you need to replicate a couple items from the backup system to production. This is necessary if you want to perform a role swap later on, or if a role swap happens unexpectedly.

Note: If these items aren't replicated to production, any subsequent role swap will fail.

  1. On the Backup system, select option 1, Synchronization Attributes, from the Robot HA Main Menu to display the Work with Synchronization Attributes panel.

  2. Press Enter to build the list.

  3. Review the list to make sure everything that should have been added during initialization is accounted for and ready for replication.

    Note: By default, the initialization process on the production system provides you with the following synchronization attributes on the backup system: *CFG and RBTHALIB.

  4. Type option 8 next to the defined *CFG and RBTHALIB replication jobs, then press Enter.

    Note: Using option 8 submits a job to a job queue, which will run replication or synchronization for the selected items.

After you've submitted these items, you can press F9 to view running replication jobs, then press Enter to view the Work with Job Queue panel. This shows the jobs currently waiting in the job queue.

Defining synchronization attributes

Once your user profiles have been synchronized from the production system to the backup system, you can create synchronization attributes for groups, libraries, IFS directories, and system objects to tailor how Robot HA synchronizes them to the backup system.

  1. Select option 1, Synchronization Attributes, from the Robot HA Main Menu. This panel allows you to work with synchronization attributes for libraries, groups, IFS directories, and system objects.

  2. Press F11 to toggle to the type of sync attribute you would like to add. Press F6 to create a new Sync attribute.

  3. On the resulting Add Sync Attributes panel for the chosen Sync attribute, review the panel and make additions or changes to the parameters as necessary.

  4. When you're finished, press Enter.

After you press F5 to refresh, the synchronization attribute you've created will appear in the Work with Synchronization Attributes list, ready to be synchronized and replicated. To sync, type option 8 beside each one and press Enter.

  1. Enter option 2, Attributes, next to the attribute you want to change. You can change more than one at a time.

  2. Press Enter. This displays the Change Sync Attributes panel for the chosen Sync attribute with the current values filled in.

  3. Review the panel and make changes as necessary.

  4. When you're finished, press Enter to save your changes.

    Note: If you're changing more than one Sync attribute, repeat steps 3-4 as necessary until they're all saved.