Welcome
Getting Started
Migration considerations
Consider these general migration considerations when you migrate to CICS® VR V6.1 from an earlier release.
General migration considerations
When you migrate to CICS® VR V6.1 from an earlier CICS VR version, you must take precautions to avoid losing data if any problems occur during migration.
Migration from another recovery product
Migrating to CICS® VR from another recovery product is the same as installing CICS VR and performing all required setup for the first time. CICS VR does not supply a utility that transfers recovery information stored by the previous recovery product into the CICS VR 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
- Introducing CICS® VR
  CICS® VSAM Recovery Version 6 Release 1 (CICS VR) recovers your lost or damaged VSAM data.
- Overview of CICS VR installation
  This information describes all the necessary steps to successfully set up CICS VR 6.1. It includes a detailed description of the various CICS VR components and how to set them up. The CICS VR server address space is required for batch logging, backup notification, and backout failure notification.
- Migration considerations
  Consider these general migration considerations when you migrate to CICS® VR V6.1 from an earlier release.
  - General migration considerations
    When you migrate to CICS® VR V6.1 from an earlier CICS VR version, you must take precautions to avoid losing data if any problems occur during migration.
    - Migration from an earlier CICS® VR release
      CICS® VR is fully downwards compatible with CICS VR V5.2, V5.1, V4.3 and V4.2. If you are migrating from CICS VR V4R2, V4R3, V5R1 or V5R2 you do not need to migrate the contents of your existing CICS VR RCDSs.
    - Migration from another recovery product
      Migrating to CICS® VR from another recovery product is the same as installing CICS VR and performing all required setup for the first time. CICS VR does not supply a utility that transfers recovery information stored by the previous recovery product into the CICS VR RCDS.
- Activating the CICS® VR server address space
  The CICS® VR server address space provides a communication vehicle for CICS VR and other applications. It must be active if you want to use any of these CICS VR functions.
- Setting up CICS® VR VSAM batch logging
  CICS® VR VSAM batch logging, referred to as batch logging, provides logging of updates made to VSAM data sets by batch jobs. Two types of batch logging are available, forward recovery logging and undo logging.
- CICS® VR security
  Security has been enhanced to protect the RCDS from being updated by any user. It is possible to specify that the users security profile must be checked before allowing certain information in the RCDS to be added, changed, or deleted.
CICS® VR and CICS® TS
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

Migration from another recovery product

Migrating to CICS® VR from another recovery product is the same as installing CICS® VR and performing all required setup for the first time. CICS® VR does not supply a utility that transfers recovery information stored by the previous recovery product into the CICS® VR RCDS.

However, by registering the log of logs to CICS® VR, and then periodically performing a log of logs scan, the CICS® VR RCDS is automatically populated with recovery information:

Names of updated VSAM spheres
Names of log streams that contain the log records
Update activity dates and times

If DFSMShsm™ is used to create backups, the backups are automatically displayed through the CICS® VR panel interface because CICS® VR dynamically queries the DFSMShsm inventory. If DFSMSdss™ or another product is used to create logical backups, CICS® VR can be notified about new backups created for your VSAM data sets. The backup information is stored in the RCDS.

Therefore, you can create recovery jobs for VSAM spheres after performing a log of logs scan without migrating recovery information stored from the previous recovery product.