ProData Updates Deleted Records Software for i/OS 6.1

Published: January 19, 2010

by Alex Woodie

ProData Computer Services last week unveiled the first new version of its Reactivate Deleted Records (RDR) software in nearly a decade. The software, which recovers files that have been accidentally deleted on the System i server, needed to be updated to work with the latest release of IBM i/OS, version 6.1.

RDR helps to automate the process of recovering records that have been accidentally deleted, which occurs surprisingly often on this platform. The product provides access to the RDR command, which allows users to recover all the records from any member of a physical file that has been deleted, or to recover records that fall between certain relative record numbers (RRNs).

When executed, the RDR command will place recovered records into a second designated file. The desired records can then be copied back into the original file using the CPYF command. Alternatively, customers can use ProData's DBU database utility to reactivate records one at a time.

Recovering records manually, without an automated tool like RDR, can be quite difficult, according to ProData. First, customers would need to restore the files. Then they would have to search for the particular deleted records. Finally, the records would need to be copied back to the original file. It would be fairly easy to make a mistake during any one of these steps, but RDR automates almost all of them.

RDR version 3 only introduces one new feature, but it's a biggie: support for i/OS version 6.1, which IBM introduced in 2008.

"RDR is now compatible with V6R1," says Allen Hartley, CEO and owner of the Omaha, Nebraska, company. "Initially some OS modifications caused a few problems, but those have been resolved. Customers can use the RDR standalone product or DBU's record by record reactivation to save themselves a lot of time and effort."

For more info, see the company's Web site at www.prodatacomputer.com.

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