Welcome
CICS® VR and CICS® TS
Setting up your CICS® TS environment
This section describes the tasks you need to do to set up your CICS® TS environment for CICS VR.
Understanding CICS® VR backup support
CICS® VR supports backups created by a variety of products.
Using ABARS as your backup utility
ABARS backups are fully supported by CICS® VR for recovery and change accumulation. CICS VR provides the ability to keep an inventory of ABARS backups in the RCDS. CICS VR also contains support to display and restore the registered backups.
Creating ABARS backups
With CICS® VR you can initiate backups using ABARS for VSAM data sets registered in the RCDS.

What's new in CICS VR 6.1
CICS® VR 6.1 contains these changes.
Operating environment
CICS® VR uses logs to recover your VSAM data.
CICS VR Overview
Getting Started
CICS® VR and CICS® TS
- Setting up CICS® VR for CICS® TS
  The tasks you need to do to set up CICS® VR for CICS TS.
- Setting up your CICS® TS environment
  This section describes the tasks you need to do to set up your CICS® TS environment for CICS VR.
  - Understanding logging with CICS® TS for z/OS®
    CICS® log manager.
  - Understanding VSAM RLS
    Record level sharing (RLS) is a VSAM function provided by DFSMS/MVS™ Version 1 Release 3 that is exploited by the CICS® Transaction Server. RLS lets VSAM data sets be shared, with update capability between many applications in many CICS regions.
  - Defining recovery attributes for RLS and non RLS files
    How to define the recovery attributes for files managed by CICS® file control.
  - RLS locks
    For files opened in RLS mode, VSAM maintains a single central lock structure using the lock-assist mechanism of the MVS™ coupling facility. This central lock structure provides sysplex-wide locking at a record level.
  - Forward recovery log failure
    If a general log that is being used by CICS® as a forward recovery log (or for automatic logging) fails, CICS ensures that any files that were using that log are closed, and that appropriate messages are issued to warn operators.
  - Establishing procedures to backup and recover your VSAM spheres
    It is very important that you establish procedures to backup your VSAM spheres that you need to protect on a regular basis.
  - Understanding CICS® VR backup support
    CICS® VR supports backups created by a variety of products.
    - Using DFSMShsm™ as your backup utility
      If your VSAM spheres are managed by DFSMS/MVS™, DFSMShsm™ logical backups provide the most support with the least amount of effort required to set up for use with CICS® VR.
    - Using DFSMSdss™ as your backup utility
      DFSMSdss™ logical copies and dumps are fully supported by CICS® VR recovery and change accumulation.
    - Using ABARS as your backup utility
      ABARS backups are fully supported by CICS® VR for recovery and change accumulation. CICS VR provides the ability to keep an inventory of ABARS backups in the RCDS. CICS VR also contains support to display and restore the registered backups.
      - Creating ABARS backups
        With CICS® VR you can initiate backups using ABARS for VSAM data sets registered in the RCDS.
      - Listing ABARS backups registered in RCDS
        The CICS® VR backup list includes ABARS backups registered in RCDS for selected VSAM data sets.
      - Restoring ABARS backups
        ABARS backups registered in the RCDS can be used to restore selected VSAM data sets.
      - ABARS backup deregistration
        ABARS backups can be deregistered from the RCDS.
    - Using other products as your backup utility
      If you are using another logical backup product ( IBM® or non-IBM) not previously listed, CICS® VR contains general backup support that allows an inventory of the backups to be maintained in the CICS VR RCDS.
    - Understanding group restore capability
      CICS® VR provides group restore capabilities for backup products which create backups containing data for several data sets.
  - Understanding nonrecoverable versus recoverable resources
    With VSAM file recovery, there are two different types of resources, ones that are not recoverable and ones that are recoverable.
  - Making the CICS® system definition (CSD) data set recoverable
    The CSD VSAM data set is unique in that it is a CICS® data set that is managed by CICS file control. If you want to forward recover the CSD data set, you must specify the recovery attributes in the system initialization table (SIT).
- Using the CICS® VR file copy notification service
  This section primarily documents intended Programming Interface that allow the customer to write programs to obtain the notify service of CICS® VR.
- Using CICS® VR with CICS® TS at your disaster recovery site
  This section describes the tasks you need to perform to prepare your primary site and your remote site for disaster recovery using CICS® TS and CICS VR.
- Automated Recovery and Reorganization
  This section describes the tasks to perform when enabling automated recovery in CICS® VR V4R1.
CICS VR Exits
Running CICS® VR forward recovery
CICS® VR forward recovery consists of a restore and then forward recovery.
Running CICS® VR backup
The information in the following topics describe how to take a backup using CICS® VR. The panels and secondary windows are in the sequence that they are displayed during a backup job generation.
Running CICS® VR reorganization
You can reorganize a VSAM sphere using CICS® VR. VSAM sphere reorganization can increase the space of a sphere and its alternate indexes. It can also change the control interval sizes for a sphere's components.
Working with other VSAM sphere list pull-down menus
The CICS® VR recovery and backup functions are typically accessed using the Utilities pull-down menu after selecting VSAM spheres.
Working with CICS® Backout Failed spheres
The CICS® Backout Failed sphere list shows the CICS spheres registered for manual recovery or reorganization after CICS notification of a backout failure.
Working with logs
Using ISMF data set lists with CICS® VR
CICS® VR is integrated with ISMF so that you can create a CICS VR recovery job for the data sets in an ISMF data set list by entering the VSAMREC line operator or list command. When you enter the VSAMREC line operator or list command, the necessary CICS VR panels are called and you can create a recovery job for the VSAM sphere.
Running CICS® VR manually
IBM® recommends that you use the CICS® VR panel interface to create recovery jobs for your VSAM spheres. Using the CICS VR panel interface eliminates the need for you to manually keep track of daily update activity, logs, backups, etc. Also, the CICS VR panel interface automatically creates the recovery JCL for you.
Running CICS® VR batch backout
The CICS® VR batch backout utility allows you to remove updates that were made to KSDS, ESDS, RRDS, and VRRDS VSAM spheres by steps in a batch job. This section describes how to run the CICS VR batch backout utility.
Understanding CICS® VR reports
The CICS® VR forward recovery and batch backout utilities produce a set of reports upon successful completion. The reports are written to the data set allocated to the DWWPRINT ddname. However, the set of reports written for the forward recovery backout utilities differ from the set of reports written for the batch backout utilities.
Understanding IBM® program support
The IBM® Customer Engineering Program Support structure helps you resolve problems with IBM products, and ensures that you can make the best use of your IBM computing systems.
Problem determination procedures
If you have to contact IBM® personnel about a CICS® VR problem, you must classify and describe the problem.
Diagnosing the causes of abends
You can determine the cause of a CICS® VR abend in a number of ways.
Reference information
The reference sections of the information contain reference information that you need when you use CICS® VR.
Glossary
The terms in this glossary are defined as they pertain to the CICS VSAM Recovery documentation.
Edition notice
This is the information for CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS. It applies to CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS Version 6.1, and to all subsequent versions, releases, and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions. Make sure you are using the correct edition for the level of the product.
Download PDF
Download the PDF format documentation for CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS 6.1

Creating ABARS backups

With CICS® VR you can initiate backups using ABARS for VSAM data sets registered in the RCDS.

Use the CICS® VR panel interface to initiate creating backups using ABARS for VSAM data sets registered in the RCDS, as shown in this example:

Figure 1. Creating backups using ABARS

                   CICSVR VSAM sphere backup parameters
Command ===>

Type the backup name or aggregate group name for the selected VSAM sphere,
then specify backup product name. Choose backup type. Press Enter to
continue.

 VSAM sphere . . . . . . : CICSVR.ABARS.CVRTESTX.ESDS01

 VSAM sphere backup name

 Aggregate group name  . . CVRTESTX

 Backup product name . . . ABARS  (HSMLB, ABARS, DSSLC, DSSLD or other)

 Backup type . . . . . . . 3  (1-CICS Online, 2-CICS Offline, 3-non-CICS)

 CICS APPLID . . . . . . .



 F1=Help        F7=PrevVSAM   F12=Cancel

To initiate creating backups by ABARS, you must specify:

The aggregate group name, not the backup name.
The backup product name, in this case ABARS. This is used to locate the appropriate skeleton supplied with CICS® VR.
Other parameters if required.

ABARS uses the DFSMSdss™ logical dump function to create backups for all of the active, non migrated, data sets of aggregate groups. This means that all the capabilities supported for DFSMSdss™ logical dumps, for example BWO, are supported for ABARS backups.