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.
Restoring ABARS backups
ABARS backups registered in the RCDS can be used to restore selected VSAM data sets.

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

Restoring ABARS backups

ABARS backups registered in the RCDS can be used to restore selected VSAM data sets.

For ABARS backups, CICS® VR additionally displays the copy numbers and version numbers. You can also select to display the backup and recovery point times in local format or in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) format.

ABARS backups are identified by the product identifier ABARS in the CICS® VR backup prompt list, as shown in CICS VR backup prompt list. When you select an ABARS backup, the corresponding restore skeleton, which is supplied with CICS® VR, is added to the generated recovery job. This skeleton deletes the target data set, if it exists, then restores and renames the selected VSAM data sets from the selected ABARS backup.

Figure 1. CICS® VR backup prompt list

                         CICSVR backup prompt list           Row 1 to 6 of 6 
 Command ===>

 Select one backup time, then press Enter.

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

 --------------------- Data set backup information ----------------------
    Date    Time(GMT) Gen  Ver   Online  Rp Date Rp Time   Type   Product
    08.118  16:38:28  01   0014  NO                        LOCAL  ABARS
    08.117  18:21:19  01   0013  NO                        LOCAL  ABARS
    08.117  10:06:29  01   0012  NO                        LOCAL  ABARS
    08.116  20:22:45  01   0011  NO                        LOCAL  ABARS
    08.116  19:36:46  01   0010  NO                        LOCAL  ABARS
    08.104  00:01:35  00   0001  NO                        LOCAL  HSMLB
 ***************************** Bottom of data ******************************



  F1=Help     F7=Bkwd     F8=Fwd     F12=Cancel

In most cases, you do not need to make any changes to this skeleton. The substituted skeleton opens as a separate job step in the generated recovery job, prior to the forward recovery job step. The restore job step contains the DFSMSdss™ RESTORE command to perform a restore of the selected VSAM data sets from the selected ABARS backup, which is a DFSMSdss™ logical dump.