Welcome
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.
Dealing with the change team
You use APARs to communicate a new CICS® VR problem to the change team.
Collecting documentation for the APAR
The documentation that you submit for an APAR must include all the material you need to perform problem determination. Some documentation is common to all CICS® VR problems, and some is specific to particular types of problems.

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
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.
- Dealing with the IBM® Support Center
  Before you contact your local IBM® Support Center, ensure that the problem is appropriate for the Support Center.
- Supplying information to the IBM® Support Center
  Your first contact with the IBM® Support Center is with the call-receipt operator, who takes initial details and routes your call to the appropriate support group. You are then contacted by a Support Center representative who investigates your problem further.
- Processing your problem
  The way your problem is later processed depends on the type of problem. The representative who deals with your problem provides guidance on what is required from you.
- Dealing with the change team
  You use APARs to communicate a new CICS® VR problem to the change team.
  - The APAR process
    An APAR number is allocated, which must accompany all correspondence and documentation that you provide to the change team.
  - Collecting documentation for the APAR
    The documentation that you submit for an APAR must include all the material you need to perform problem determination. Some documentation is common to all CICS® VR problems, and some is specific to particular types of problems.
  - Sending documentation to the change team
    The best way to submit documentation to the Support Center is through a communications link. If you cannot use a link send the documentation in an APAR box, which you can obtain from your local IBM® branch office. APAR boxes are easily identified, and they have a panel where you can write tracking information, such as the APAR number.
  - Obtaining and applying the fix
    When the problem is solved, a code is entered in RETAIN® to close the APAR, and you might be provided with an APAR fix.
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

Collecting documentation for the APAR

The documentation that you submit for an APAR must include all the material you need to perform problem determination. Some documentation is common to all CICS® VR problems, and some is specific to particular types of problems.

Ensure the documentation that you send reflects the problem that you describe. If the problem has ambiguous symptoms, show the sequence of events that lead up to the failure. Tracing is valuable here, but you might be able to provide details that the trace cannot give. Annotate your documentation. Highlight important data in the documentation you send.

If you send too little documentation, or if it is unreadable, the change team will return the APAR marked insufficient documentation. Prepare your documentation carefully and send everything that is relevant to the problem.

Here is a list of the documentation and supporting material you might be asked to submit for an APAR. These are guidelines; you must find out from your Support Center representative precisely which documentation to send for your specific problem.

Details of the JCL and messages from the jobs you ran when you installed CICS® VR.
Details of the data sets used in the failing CICS® VR run. Backup copies, from before and after the error, are required to create the problem again.
A listing of the recovery control data set (RCDS).
A copy of the RCDS.
Any dumps that were produced.
The CICS® VR reports.
CICS® VR trace and diagnostic file information.
A printout of the CICS® VR SYSLOG message-log file.
Details of any IDCAMS messages from the DWWMSG file.
Information about the route used through the CICS® VR ISPF dialog interface, including panel IDs, and the data entered on each panel and secondary window. A printout of the dialog panels and secondary windows involved, including input data, is also useful.
ISPF diagnostic material.
A description of the CICS® VR maintenance level.
Details about your other software levels.
Logs used.
JCL listings (these might be with the dumps, and are not required to be sent twice).
Hardware details.
A list of PTFs and APARs applied. System Modification Program/Extended (SMP/E) provides this information.
Details of exits.