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 logging with CICS® TS for z/OS®
CICS® log manager.
CICS® logging and journaling
CICS® logging and journaling can be divided into four broad types of activity.

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.
    - CICS® logging and journaling
      CICS® logging and journaling can be divided into four broad types of activity.
      - Using CICS® TS autojournaling
        CICS® TS supports the automatic journaling (autojournaling) of file control data to a specified general log stream. Parameters specified in the CICS definitions of VSAM files determine whether or not autojournaling is to be performed, and the types of operations (add, read, or others) that are recorded.
    - Understanding MVS™ log streams
      Coupling facility log streams reside in the coupling facility and in either a data space in the IXGLOGR address space or in staging data sets. DASD-only log streams reside in a data space in the IXGLOGR address space and in staging data sets.
    - Defining system log streams
      You must define a system log if you want to preserve data integrity in the event of unit of work failures and CICS® failures.
    - Defining forward recovery log streams
      VSAM data sets that are defined as recoverable files must have associated forward-recovery logs. In the event of physical failure or corruption, CICS® VR can reapply the updates.
    - Defining the log of logs
      The log of logs is an MVS™ log stream created by CICS® TS that contains records that are written each time a file is opened or closed.
  - 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.
  - 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

CICS® logging and journaling

CICS® logging and journaling can be divided into four broad types of activity.

System Logging: CICS® maintains a system log to support transaction backout for recoverable resources. System logging is implemented by CICS® TS automatically, but you can define the log stream as DUMMY to inhibit the function. If you specify TYPE(DUMMY) for the system log, CICS® TS runs without any transaction backout facilities and without any restart capability.

Forward Recovery Logging: CICS® supports forward recovery logs for VSAM data sets. A forward recovery log is a general log stream managed by the MVS™ system logger. CICS® writes the after images of changes made to a data set to a forward recovery log. Forward recovery logging is not automatic. You must specify that you want this facility for your files and also define the forward recovery log streams. You must specify this information in the ICF catalog if you want RLS mode; if you do not want RLS mode, you can specify this information in either the file resource definition or ICF catalog.

Autojournaling: CICS® supports autojournaling of file control data and terminal control messages. Autojournaling is generally used for audit trails. CICS® VR can forward recover a VSAM data set from log records produced by CICS® TS autojournaling. However, IBM® recommends only using log records produced by CICS® TS forward recovery logging with CICS® VR. More information about autojournaling can be found in Using CICS TS autojournaling.

User journaling: CICS® supports programming interfaces to let CICS® applications write user-defined records to user journals, which are held on general log streams. CICS® VR does not support forward recovery of a CICS® TS VSAM data set using a user journal.

Note:

User journals play no part in VSAM recovery.

The CICS® log manager writes the data associated with these logging and journaling activities to MVS™ log streams, which the log manager controls as two types of log streams:

System log streams: These are used by the CICS® log manager and the CICS® recovery manager for unit of work (UOW) recovery purposes. Each system log is unique to a CICS® region and cannot be merged with any other system log.
General log streams: These are used by the CICS® log manager for all other types of logging and journaling.