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 DFSMSdss™ as your backup utility
DFSMSdss™ logical copies and dumps are fully supported by CICS® VR recovery and change accumulation.
DFSMSdss™ logical copy and dump notification
The CICS® VR server address space must be active for CICS VR to keep an inventory of DFSMSdss™. Logical copies and dumps are created for VSAM data sets.

What's new in CICS VR 6.3
CICS® VR 6.3 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.
      - DFSMSdss™ logical copy and dump notification
        The CICS® VR server address space must be active for CICS VR to keep an inventory of DFSMSdss™. Logical copies and dumps are created for VSAM data sets.
      - Restoring a DFSMSdss™ logical copy or dump
        Because CICS® VR can keep an inventory of DFSMSdss™ logical copies and dumps in the RCDS, a list of all registered copies and dumps is available through the CICS VR panel interface.
      - Using DFSMSdss™ COPY
        You can use the DFSMSdss™ COPY command to make copies of VSAM data sets for use by CICS® VR.
      - Using DFSMSdss™ DUMP
        If you want to use DFSMSdss™ DUMP, you must create a batch job and set it up so that it is regularly submitted with a production planning system such as OPC/ESA.
    - 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 6.3, 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 6.3

DFSMSdss™ logical copy and dump notification

The CICS® VR server address space must be active for CICS® VR to keep an inventory of DFSMSdss™. Logical copies and dumps are created for VSAM data sets.

Additionally, a few keywords, as described in the following sections, must be added to your copy and dump jobs. These keywords specify to DFSMSdss™ that the copy or dump is for use by CICS® VR.

The ISMF panels that can be used to create a logical copy or dump for VSAM spheres also support CICS® VR notification. When you enter the COPY or DUMP line operator or list command from ISMF, set the CICS VR backup input field to Y. This adds the appropriate keywords to the copy or dump job indicating the copy or dump is for use by CICS® VR. See the CICS® VR User's Guide for further information about ISMF support.

When the appropriate keywords have been added to the copy or dump job, DFSMSdss™ automatically notifies CICS® VR about the logical copy or dump that was created for the VSAM data set. CICS® VR receives this notification and stores information about the logical copy or dump in the RCDS. Additionally, CICS® VR also provides a unique data set name to the copy job for all DFSMSdss™ logical copies of which it is notified.

Note:

Notification of DFSMSdss™ logical copies and dumps is automatically performed by DFSMSdss™. There is no need to call the CICS® VR file copy notification service, as described in Using the CICS VR file copy notification service, for DFSMSdss™ logical copies or dumps.

Note:

The CICSVRBACKUP DFSMSdss™ keyword required for CICS® VR notification is mutually exclusive with the SPHERE keyword. Therefore, only a copy or dump of the VSAM base cluster can be created for use with CICS® VR.