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 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.

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.
      - DFSMShsm™ logical backup notification
        As previously mentioned, CICS® VR can dynamically query the DFSMShsm inventory to retrieve and display a list of all DFSMShsm™ logical backups that exist for VSAM spheres.
      - Restoring a DFSMShsm™ logical backup
        When a DFSMShsm™ logical backup is selected for restore through the CICS® VR panel interface, CICS VR automatically adds an additional keyword to the RECOVER command.
      - Recording DFSMShsm™ backup times in GMT format
        If change accumulation is enabled for a VSAM sphere, CICS® VR is notified of DFSMShsm™ logical backups created for the VSAM sphere. You can then view the backup times of the DFSMShsm logical backups in both local and GMT format through the CICS VR panel interface.
      - Using DFSMShsm™ full volume dumps
        CICS® VR provides limited support for DFSMShsm™ full volume dumps. Unlike DFSMShsm logical backups, CICS VR cannot dynamically retrieve and display a list of full volume dumps on which the VSAM sphere is backed up.
    - 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.
    - 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

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.

DFSMShsm™ logical backups can be created for an entire VSAM sphere, not just the base cluster. CICS® VR recovery and change accumulation fully support DFSMShsm™ logical backups. CICS® VR can dynamically query DFSMShsm's inventory (BCDS) to retrieve and display a list of all DFSMShsm™ logical backups that exist for VSAM spheres. In this case CICS® VR server is not required.

Note:

Because DFSMShsm's inventory contains backup timestamps in the LOCAL format only, this method could be used for recovery with timestamps in the LOCAL format.

Additionally, CICS® VR fully supports DFSMShsm™ logical backups that are created while the data set remains online and open to CICS® for update, using the backup-while-open (BWO) facility. Using the BWO facility with DFSMShsm™ could allow you to increase the amount of backups taken for your VSAM spheres, while decreasing the time your spheres are unavailable to CICS® for update. See Understanding the backup-while-open (BWO) facility for more information.