The MAREN catalog contains all the information needed to manage the tape inventories of a data center. This information can be created, modified, and inquired by MAREN components.
The BS2000 systems in a MAREN network access the same (central) MAREN catalog. See chapter “MAREN network and domains”.
The MAREN catalog consists of two files:
- Volume catalog (archive-number or VSN-oriented).
- Logging files (optional).
To prevent unauthorized access, both files should be created with the attribute USER-ACCESS=*OWNER-ONLY.
MAREN offers the operating modes “shared mode” and “exclusive mode” which differ in the access method to the MAREN catalog used by the systems involved, see section “Operating modes in MAREN”.
When domains are used in a MAREN network, all information about the domains is contained in the volume catalog. In this case the MAREN user and the Domain Administrator only access information on their own domains. See chapter “MAREN network and domains” (Domains in a MAREN network).
Backup of the MAREN catalog
To avoid deadlock situations during data backup, the MAREN catalog has the backup level E and is usually excluded from data backups.
However, since the catalog must be restored in the event of a fault or loss, and a backup version is required for this, it is advisable to create copies of the MAREN volume catalog before a data center backup run (using the MARENADM statement COPY-VOLUME-CATALOG) and to include these copies in the data backup.