Welcome
Getting Started
Activating the CICS® VR server address space
The CICS® VR server address space provides a communication vehicle for CICS VR and other applications. It must be active if you want to use any of these CICS VR functions.
Allocating data sets required by the CICS® VR server address space
During activation of the CICS® VR server address space, CICS VR attempts to allocate data sets to various ddnames. For some of the ddnames, CICS VR attempts to dynamically create, catalog and allocate a data set if one was not created prior to activation.
Understanding the recovery control data sets (RCDSs)
The CICS® VR recovery control data sets are three linear VSAM data sets that CICS VR uses to store and retrieve various recovery information.
Creating the RCDSs
Prior to running CICS® VR, three RCDSs must be created using the naming convention as described in the previous section. The points to consider when creating the RCDSs.

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
- Introducing CICS® VR
  CICS® VSAM Recovery Version 6 Release 3 (CICS VR) recovers your lost or damaged VSAM data.
- Overview of CICS VR installation
  This information describes all the necessary steps to successfully set up CICS VR 6.3. It includes a detailed description of the various CICS VR components and how to set them up. The CICS VR server address space is required for batch logging, backup notification, and backout failure notification.
- Migration considerations
  Consider these general migration considerations when you migrate to CICS® VR 6.3 from an earlier release.
- Activating the CICS® VR server address space
  The CICS® VR server address space provides a communication vehicle for CICS VR and other applications. It must be active if you want to use any of these CICS VR functions.
  - Understanding the CICS® VR server address space requirements
    To enable the CICS® VR server address space, these are the requirements that must be met.
  - Setting up PARMLIB for the CICS® VR server address space
    Prior to activating the CICS® VR server address space there are parameters that you must specify.
  - Allocating data sets required by the CICS® VR server address space
    During activation of the CICS® VR server address space, CICS VR attempts to allocate data sets to various ddnames. For some of the ddnames, CICS VR attempts to dynamically create, catalog and allocate a data set if one was not created prior to activation.
    - Understanding the DWWMSGA, DWWMSGB, DWWDMSG, and DWWDUMP data sets
      The CICS® VR server allocates two message data sets at the server activation.
    - Understanding the history data sets
      The CICS® VR server uses temporary history data sets which are dynamically allocated with ddname DWWHIST.
    - Understanding the recovery control data sets (RCDSs)
      The CICS® VR recovery control data sets are three linear VSAM data sets that CICS VR uses to store and retrieve various recovery information.
      - Understanding the RCDS naming convention
        There are three recovery control data sets you create must using the following naming convention.
      - Creating the RCDSs
        Prior to running CICS® VR, three RCDSs must be created using the naming convention as described in the previous section. The points to consider when creating the RCDSs.
        GRS considerations
        Global Resource Serialization (GRS) must be installed to access the RCDSs from more than one MVS™ system.
      - Maintaining the RCDS
        Throughout various CICS® VR processes, CICS VR verifies the consistency and availability of the RCDSs. Any damaged or unusable RCDS are reported by CICS VR in a message.
      - Full RCDS
        In the following steps, it is assumed that the RCDS allocated to the DWWCON3 ddname is full.
  - Identifying preallocation errors
    The message that the CICS® VR server address space issues if the DWWMSGx or DWWCONn data sets are not preallocated correctly.
  - Using the DISPLAY command
    You can use the DISPLAY command to display the status of the CICS® VR server address space, logstreams, and RCDS on a single system or all systems that belong to the same CICS VR XCF group.
  - Using the VARY command to activate or terminate the CICS® VR server
    You can use the VARY command to activate or terminate the CICS® VR server on a single system.
  - Assigning CICS® VR access authority
    By default, all processes started by the CICS® VR server address space run under an undefined RACF® user ID.
  - Authorizing user IDS to issue DFSMShsm™ commands
    If you want to use DFSMShsm™ as your backup utility and the CICS® VR server address space is enabled, you must request that your user ID be authorized to issue DFSMShsm-authorized commands.
  - Understanding the CICS® VR scavengers
    Descriptions of the three scavengers that the CICS VR server address space runs: the history, server and inventory scavengers.
- Setting up CICS® VR VSAM batch logging
  CICS® VR VSAM batch logging, referred to as batch logging, provides logging of updates made to VSAM data sets by batch jobs. Two types of batch logging are available, forward recovery logging and undo logging.
- CICS® VR security
  Security has been enhanced to protect the RCDS from being updated by any user. It is possible to specify that the users security profile must be checked before allowing certain information in the RCDS to be added, changed, or deleted.
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.
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

Creating the RCDSs

Prior to running CICS® VR, three RCDSs must be created using the naming convention as described in the previous section. The points to consider when creating the RCDSs.

To reduce the possibility of losing the recovery information, IBM® recommends that you create each of the three RCDSs on separate volumes, disk controllers, and channels. This prevents the loss of recovery data due to a single hardware failure.
The RCDSs must be created on separate volumes, disk controllers, and channels from those of the VSAM spheres that you update and want to forward recover with CICS® VR. This helps to prevent failures that corrupt your production VSAM data from affecting the RCDSs.
CICS® VR contains logic to ensure that all CICS® VR instances that belong to the same CICS® VR XCF group use the same RCDSs. Therefore, you must create the RCDSs on storage that is accessible from all systems in a sysplex that run an instance of the CICS® VR server address space that belongs to the same CICS® VR XCF group. All CICS® VR instances in the CICS® VR XCF group need write access to the RCDSs.
In addition, you need to create separate sets of CICS® VR RCDSs for each CICS® VR group defined in a sysplex.
One of the RCDSs must be defined with a smaller size. Therefore, if the RCDSs are becoming full, you can be notified and take proper action prior to encountering this situation on all three RCDSs. If all three RCDSs become full, CICS® VR processes terminate until proper corrective action is taken.
If this is the first time you are installing CICS® VR, and you are using CICS® VR VSAM batch logging or backup notification, you might want to use the following sizings as a starting point for your RCDSs.
```
DWWCON1 - CYLINDERS(200 30) 
DWWCON2 - CYLINDERS(200 30) 
DWWCON3 - CYLINDERS(150 30)
```
If you do not plan on using CICS® VR VSAM batch logging or backup notification, then refer to the RCDS formula in Creating and maintaining the RCDS when not using the CICS VR server address space for RCDS sizing information.