Welcome
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.
Understanding CICS® VR automatic deregistration
During the execution of various CICS® VR utilities, log of logs scan, backup notification, change accumulation, and so on. CICS VR stores information in the RCDS.
Setting automatic deregistration criteria
CICS® VR provides an automatic deregistration function to prevent situations where the RCDS becomes full.
Setting automatic log stream deregistration criteria
Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can set separate retention periods for MVS™ log streams and log stream copies.
Setting individual deregistration criteria for log streams
Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can set individual retention periods for registered MVS™ log streams.

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® VR ISPF environment
    Using the CICS® VR panel interface can significantly reduce the amount of effort and time required to recover your VSAM data.
  - Understanding the recovery control data set
    The CICS® VR recovery control data set (RCDS) contains essential information for recovering your VSAM spheres.
  - Deciding which VSAM spheres to protect
    You want to be able to forward recover all VSAM spheres that are defined as CICS® files. Data sets that are read-only or browse-only do not need forward recovery or backout, however, back them up regularly in case they become unusable.
  - Creating groups of VSAM spheres
    When you have decided which VSAM spheres to protect, you can create groups of VSAM spheres that share common attributes, such as spheres that reside on the same volume or are updated by the same application, into groups.
  - Registering or deregistering your log of logs data sets
    All log of logs data sets must be registered in the RCDS for CICS® VR to know about them.
  - Setting up the log of logs scan utility (scan)
    The LOGOFLOGS scan utility scans all the log of logs that are registered in the RCDS, gathers information, and updates the RCDS with this information.
  - Setting up CICS® VR change accumulation
    CICS® VR CA reduces the time it takes to perform a forward recovery.
  - Deciding if you want to use shadow copies
    You can reduce the time it takes to forward recover a VSAM file by creating a shadow copy of it.
  - Understanding CICS® VR automatic deregistration
    During the execution of various CICS® VR utilities, log of logs scan, backup notification, change accumulation, and so on. CICS VR stores information in the RCDS.
    - Setting automatic deregistration criteria
      CICS® VR provides an automatic deregistration function to prevent situations where the RCDS becomes full.
      - Setting automatic log stream deregistration criteria
        Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can set separate retention periods for MVS™ log streams and log stream copies.
        Setting individual deregistration criteria for log streams
        Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can set individual retention periods for registered MVS™ log streams.
        MVS™ log stream retention period
        If you want CICS® VR periodically to deregister and delete information related to forward recovery and log of logs log steams, specify a number between 0 and 999 in the Retention period for blocks field and press enter.
        Log stream copy retention period
        If you want CICS® VR periodically to deregister information from the RCDS related to log stream copies, specify a number between 0 and 999 in the Retention period for copies field and press enter.
      - Setting automatic backup deregistration criteria
        Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can specify retention criteria for all logical backups that are registered in the CICS VR RCDS.
      - Setting automatic change accumulation deregistration criteria
        Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can specify retention criteria for all change accumulation (CA) data sets registered in the CICS VR RCDS.
    - Turning off automatic deregistration
      If you want to turn off CICS® VR automatic deregistration for log streams, backups, or change accumulation data sets, perform the following steps:
    - Understanding when CICS® VR automatic deregistration occurs
      When CICS® VR automatic deregistration of log streams, backups or change accumulation data sets has been turned on, CICS VR automatically deregisters, and optionally deletes, outdated information.
    - Understanding what is deregistered and deleted by CICS® VR automatic deregistration
      CICS® VR automatic deregistration deregisters, and optionally deletes, information that relates to the retention settings that have been set.
  - Implementing CICS® VR automatic deregistration
    The retention period values that you enter for CICS® VR automatic deregistration reflect your current environment and requirements.
- 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.
- 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

Setting individual deregistration criteria for log streams

Using the CICS® VR panel interface, you can set individual retention periods for registered MVS™ log streams.

You can set individual retention periods for log streams and log of logs streams registered to CICS® VR by carrying out the following steps.

Call the CICS® VR panel interface.
Select option 4, Automatic deregister criteria, from the CICS® VR main menu and press Enter; the CICS® VR automatic deregister criteria menu opens.
Select option 1, Automatic log stream deregister, and press Enter. The CICS® VR automatic log stream deregister secondary window opens, as shown in CICS® VR individual log stream deregister secondary window.
Press F11(IndDereg). The CICS® VR individual log stream deregister secondary window is displayed:

Figure 1. CICS® VR individual log stream deregister secondary window

                   CICSVR individual log stream deregister   Row 1 to 6 of 6
 Command ===>

 Type the number of days for the Retention period field to specify
 individual deregistration criteria for logstreams and log-of-logs. Or,
 leave the Retention period field blank to switch off individual
 deregisration. Then press Enter to save changes in the RCDS.


     Log stream name             Type  Retention Period
     FILELOG1_WITH_FFFF_RETP     LS    000
     FILELOG1_WITH_FFFF_RETP     LOL   000
     FILELOG1_WITH_0000_RETP     LS
     FILELOG1_WITH_99_RETP       LS    099
     LOGOFLOGS_WITH_0000_RETP    LOL
     LOGOFLOGS_WITH_0550_RETP    LOL   550
 ***************************** Bottom of data ******************************




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

The CICS® VR individual log stream deregister secondary window shows all log streams registered to CICS® VR. The type field contains the value LS for MVS™ log streams and the value LOL for log of logs streams.

To set the individual deregistration criteria, type the number of days for the retention period of the specific log streams, and press Enter.

To switch off individual deregistration for the specific log streams, leave the retention period field blank.