Preparing your primary site

Perform™ the following steps at the primary site in preparation for remote site recovery.

  1. Create backups of your VSAM spheres:

    Create backups of your VSAM spheres regularly. The more often you create backups and send them to the remote site, the less time it takes to forward recover the VSAM spheres at the remote site. Any utility can be used to create backups of your VSAM spheres, but CICS® VR's ability to automatically restore the backups differs based on your backup utility selection.

    An important factor to consider when selecting your backup utility is how the backups are restored at the remote site. CICS® VR can help to automate this restore process for certain backup utilities. How your backups are restored at the remote site is based on the following types of backup utilities.
    DFSMShsm™ logical backup
    If you create DFSMShsm™ logical backups, use the CICS® VR panel interface to create a job that automatically restores the VSAM spheres from their latest backups, then performs a forward recovery on the restored VSAM spheres. You also need to send the DFSMShsm™ control data sets (CDS) and journal to the remote site, then perform steps to update the remote site's DFSMShsm™ control data sets. These steps are explained in DFSMShsm logical backup on tape – at the primary site.
    DFSMShsm™ full volume dump
    If you create a DFSMShsm™ full volume dump, use the CICS® VR panel interface to create a job that automatically restores the VSAM spheres from the dump, then performs a forward recovery on the restored VSAM spheres. You also need to send the DFSMShsm™ control data sets (CDS) and journal to the remote site, then perform steps to update the remote site's DFSMShsm™ control data sets. These steps are explained in DFSMShsm full volume dump on tape – at the primary site.
    ABARS (aggregate backup and recovery support)
    You can use the CICS® VR panel interface to create a job that automatically restores the VSAM spheres from ABARS backups, then performs a forward recovery on the restored VSAM spheres. This applies if all the following items are true:
    • CICS® VR was notified when the ABARS backups were created. This means that the CICS® VR address space was active, and the DFSMSdss™ logical dump registration control default was activated when the ABARS backup job was submitted.
    • The ABARS backups were sent to the remote recovery site and cataloged.
    • The RCDS EXPORT utility exported ABARS backup information. This means that the BACKUP keyword was specified on the RCDS EXPORT command.
    If any of the previous items are not true, you must restore the VSAM spheres manually from their backups made by ABARS at the remote site. After the restore, you can call the CICS® VR panel interface to create and submit a forward recovery job.
    DFSMSdss™
    You can use the CICS® VR panel interface to create a job that automatically restores the VSAM spheres from DFSMSdss™ logical copies or dumps, then performs a forward recovery on the restored VSAM spheres if the following items are true:
    • CICS® VR was notified when the DFSMSdss™ logical copies or dumps were created, the CICSVRBACKUP keyword was added to the job and the CICS® VR address space was active when the copy or dump job was submitted.
    • The DFSMSdss™ backups were sent to the remote recovery site and cataloged.
    • The RCDS EXPORT utility exported DFSMSdss™ backup information, the BACKUP keyword was specified on the RCDS EXPORT command.
    If any of the previous items are not true, then the VSAM spheres first must be restored manually at the remote site from the DFSMSdss™ backups. Then, you can call the CICS® VR panel interface to create and submit a forward recovery job.
    Backups registered through the file copy notification service
    If you want to use the CICS® VR panel interface to select backups for restore that were previously registered to CICS® VR through the file copy notification service, you need to:
    • Send the backups to the remote recovery site.
    • Send the associated restore skeletons to the remote recovery site, and define them to CICS® VR at the remote recovery site. Restore skeletons can either be added as a member to the SDWWSENU data set, using the characteristics of this PDS), or as a member of another PDS allocated to the DWWSLIB ddname.
    • Export backup information from the RCDS. Adding the BACKUP keyword to the RCDS EXPORT command causes CICS® VR to add registered backup information to the sequential data set produced by the export utility.
    Other backup utilities
    If you use any other backup utility not previously mentioned, you must ensure that RCDS information is exported to the remote site, along with the proper restore skeletons and actual backups. The RCDS information is exported using the RCDS command as described in Using the RCDS utility to export your RCDS. When the resources are available on the remote site, the CICS® VR panels can be used to create a recovery job, as described in Using other products as your backup utility.

  2. Run LOGOFLOGS SCAN:

    After CICS® applications have updated the VSAM spheres, call the CICS® VR log of logs scan utility. The log of logs scan utility informs CICS® VR of the latest updates performed by CICS® against VSAM spheres. CICS® VR then uses this information to build a recovery job for the VSAM spheres. Run LOGOFLOGS SCAN regularly so that CICS® VR has the latest recovery information. This recovery information is stored in the RCDS. See Setting up the log of logs scan utility (scan) for more information about the log of logs scan utility.

  3. Create a log stream copy:

    Start the CICS® VR log stream copy utility to copy the log records from an MVS™ log stream to a sequential data set. Perform™ this step after your VSAM spheres have been updated by CICS® applications, batch applications, or both, and after you have run the log of logs scan utility. Send these log stream copies to the remote site in preparation for remote site recovery.

    Log stream copies must be made regularly. CICS® VR at the remote site can only forward recover a VSAM sphere up to the latest log record on the latest log stream copy. If updates were performed against a VSAM sphere, but these log records are never copied from the MVS™ log stream and sent to the remote site, CICS® VR at the remote site can not perform a forward recovery that applies the latest updates. See Using the log stream copy utility to copy your MVS log streams for more information about the log stream copy utility.

  4. EXPORT the RCDS:

    The CICS® VR RCDS contains all information required to create a forward recovery job for a VSAM sphere. Information such as when a VSAM sphere was updated and which log stream and log stream copy the log records are located on is stored in the RCDS. Invoking the CICS® VR RCDS utility with the EXPORT keyword specified extracts the recovery information from the primary site's RCDS and store it into a sequential data set.

    Optionally, you can also add the CA and BACKUP keywords to the RCDS EXPORT command to extract information related to change accumulation and backups respectively from the RCDS into the sequential data set.
    Note:
    If you export information related to change accumulation and backups from the RCDS, you must also send the actual change accumulation data sets and backups to the remote recovery site. Catalog the change accumulation data sets and backups prior to invoking any CICS® VR utility at the remote recovery site.

    CICS® VR at the remote site then can import the contents of this sequential data set into the remote site's RCDS. Then, use the CICS® VR panel interface to create and submit a recovery job for the VSAM spheres.

    It is important that you export the RCDS only after the log of logs have been scanned and a log stream copy has been created. Both of these activities update information in the RCDS. Be sure that the RCDS you export has the latest recovery information. If you were to first export the RCDS, then create a log stream copy, CICS® VR at the remote site would not be aware of the log stream copy. Therefore, CICS® VR could not create a job that uses the latest log stream copy to perform a forward recovery. See Using the RCDS utility to export your RCDS for more information.

    If you use a copy product such as IDCAMS REPRO to create a copy of the RCDS for use at the remote site, be aware that the remote site's copied RCDS assumes that the remote site's environment and resources are exactly the same as they were at the primary site.

    Note:
    It is not mandatory that you send the contents from the primary site's RCDS to the remote site, with the RCDS utility or a copy product. If you do not send the contents of the primary site's RCDS, you need to record all necessary recovery information; for example, log stream copy names or log activity times, manually at the primary site. Then, create and submit the recovery job manually at the remote site, without using the CICS® VR panel interface, to recover the VSAM spheres.

  5. Send the information to the remote site:

    Now that you have copied all information required by CICS® VR at the remote site, you need to send it to the remote site. How you transmit the VSAM sphere backups, log stream copies, and exported RCDS is up to you and must fit into your remote site disaster recovery plan. For example, you might want to place everything on a tape and then physically send this tape to the remote site. Another approach might include the use of a product such as Extended Remote Copy (XRC) to send data to a remote site electronically.

Frequency of steps 1 - 5: Steps 1 through 5 must be repeated on a regular basis. In the event that you have to use the remote site to recover VSAM spheres, CICS® VR only recovers the VSAM spheres with the recovery information that was sent to the remote site. Therefore, the recovered VSAM spheres are as current only as the latest remote site recovery information.