Welcome
CICS VR Exits
Using the CICS® VR archive exits
Documentation of intended Programming Interfaces that assist you to write exits for CICS® VR archive and log stream copy utilities.
What you can use the exits for
The CICS® VR archive and log stream copy exits let you perform special processing at two different exit points.

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
CICS VR Exits
- Using the CICS® VR archive exits
  Documentation of intended Programming Interfaces that assist you to write exits for CICS® VR archive and log stream copy utilities.
  - What you can use the exits for
    The CICS® VR archive and log stream copy exits let you perform special processing at two different exit points.
    - User processing before copying the log record
      Use the precopy exit to copy each log record to another data set before it is copied to the output data set.
    - Terminating operations performed by the precopy exit
  - How the archive exits work
    Before you start using an exit, you must know how it works with the CICS® VR archive utility and log stream copy utility. The interface conventions for passing control and information between the archive utility or the log stream copy utility and the exit programs are described here.
  - Precopy exit: process a copy of the log record
    Use the precopy exit to copy each log record to another data set, before the archive utility or log stream copy utility copies the record to the output data set
  - Termination exit: terminate operations from the precopy exit
    Use the termination exit to stop the actions that were performed by the precopy exit, such as closing the data set that the precopy exit copied the log records to.
- Implementing exits for forward recovery and backout
  Description of intended Programming Interfaces that allow you to write exits for CICS® VR forward recovery and backout.
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

What you can use the exits for

The CICS® VR archive and log stream copy exits let you perform special processing at two different exit points.

These optional exits and their uses are:

Precopy: Copy each log record
Termination: Terminate operations performed by the precopy exit

User processing before copying the log record

Use the precopy exit to copy each log record to another data set before it is copied to the output data set

Terminating operations performed by the precopy exit

Use the termination exit to terminate operations that were performed by the precopy exit.