> Is there a way(easy) in MPE/iX JCL to kill all the jobs in a
> batch job before backup starts?

There is an ABORTJOB UDC and an ABORTJ script on jazz that will
partly do this.  Eg.

   :abortj @j

aborts all jobs on the system.  The job/session issuing the ABORTJ
is not aborted nor are sessions in this example. I have not added
an LDEV filter, but you can select by job state (wait, exec, susp,
sched) and by job queue.  More sophisticated selection is possible,
eg.
   :abortj @j - @.sys

aborts all jobs except those logged on in the SYS account, and

   :abortj @J:[log in to unmask]@prod;wait

aborts all jobs logged on with user names starting with 'm' and
account names ending in 'prod' that are in the wait state.

The URL is http://jazz.external.hp.com/src/scripts/index.html

Jeff Vance, CSY