Welcome
Problem determination procedures
If you have to contact IBM® personnel about a CICS® VR problem, you must classify and describe the problem.
Collecting diagnostic information
You can improve the efficiency of this process by preparing and sending the correct diagnostic information when you initially report the problem. Depending on the type and complexity of a problem, the IBM® Support Center might require you to send certain information to help diagnose and resolve the problem.
Creating a sequential data set copy of the RCDS
The CICS® VR recovery control data set (RCDS) is the repository of recovery data that is used by CICS VR. For every CICS VR problem that you report, create a sequential data set copy of one of the three RCDSs and send it to the IBM® Support Center.

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
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.
- Classifying a problem
  The first step in diagnosis is classifying the type of problem. Symptoms that suggest the presence of a problem can be valuable clues in diagnosing and solving the problem.
- Collecting information about any problem
  Follow these procedures to collect information about any problem and to collect information about an unidentified problem.
- Collecting diagnostic information
  You can improve the efficiency of this process by preparing and sending the correct diagnostic information when you initially report the problem. Depending on the type and complexity of a problem, the IBM® Support Center might require you to send certain information to help diagnose and resolve the problem.
  - Collecting diagnostic information for the CICS® VR server address space
    You must collect diagnostic information for problems that occur using the CICS® VR server address space, either when starting the CICS VR server address space or when initializing the CICS VR server address space at IPL.
  - Collecting diagnostic information for CICS® VR utilities
    The IBM® Support Center requires these data sets if you experience a problem starting a CICS® VR utility through a batch job.
  - Collecting diagnostic information for the CICS® VR ISPF panel interface
    Send copies of these data sets to the IBM® Support Center if you experience a problem with the CICS® VR panel interface.
  - Creating a sequential data set copy of the RCDS
    The CICS® VR recovery control data set (RCDS) is the repository of recovery data that is used by CICS VR. For every CICS VR problem that you report, create a sequential data set copy of one of the three RCDSs and send it to the IBM® Support Center.
- Tracing in the CICS® VR server address space
  DFSMSdfp™ provides a trace service for use with CICS® VR server. A special trace table is created in CICS VR server address space and in each address space where CICS VR client applications are run and tracing is selected.
- Collecting information about specific problems
  After you have chosen a problem-type keyword, use the following procedure to collect problem documentation.
- Collecting documentation about all problems
  Gather certain information for any problem, even when you cannot identify the type of problem. Record the information on a copy of the worksheet.
- Problem description worksheet
  You can print this worksheet for your use.
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 a sequential data set copy of the RCDS

The CICS® VR recovery control data set (RCDS) is the repository of recovery data that is used by CICS® VR. For every CICS® VR problem that you report, create a sequential data set copy of one of the three RCDSs and send it to the IBM® Support Center.

The IBM® Support Center prefers you to use the IDCAMS REPRO utility to create a sequential data set copy of an RCDS. Use the sample job shown here as a model to create your own copy. The sample job uses IDCAMS REPRO to copy an RCDS (DWW.DWWCON1) to a new sequential data set (EXAMPLE.REPRO).

Before you begin: Ensure that the record length of the sequential data set is equal to the CI size of the RCDS.

Figure 1. IDCAMS REPRO job that copies the contents of your RCDS

//RCDSJOB JOB ACCOUNTING INFORMATION,REGION=0M        01
//REPRO1   EXEC PGM=IDCAMS                            02
//SYSPRINT DD  SYSOUT=*                               03
//INRCDS   DD  DSN=DWW.DWWCON1,DISP=SHR               04
//OUTDS    DD  DSN=EXAMPLE.REPRO,                     05
//             DISP=(NEW,CATLG),SPACE=(CYL,(5,5)),   	  
//             UNIT=SYSDA,                           	 
//             DCB=(LRECL=4096,RECFM=FB,BLKSIZE=4096)	
//SYSIN    DD  *                                      06
 REPRO INFILE(INRCDS) OUTFILE(OUTDS)                  07
/*                                                   
//

Line: Explanation
01: Specifies the job statement for the job.
02: Specifies that the IDCAMS program is run to create a copy of the RCDS.
03: Specifies where to place any messages that are produced.
04: Specifies the name of the RCDS that you want to copy. You need to copy only one of the three RCDSs.
05: Specifies the sequential data set into which that the contents of the RCDS are placed. After this job has run successfully, send a copy of this data set to the IBM® Support Center.
06: Specifies the data set that contains the IDCAMS commands. You can either specify the name of a data set that contains the commands or include the commands in-stream, as shown.
07: Specifies that the REPRO command copies all records from the source data set, DWW.DWWCON1, to the target data set, EXAMPLE.REPRO.

For more information about IDCAMS REPRO, see z/OS DFSMS Access Method Services for Catalogs and z/OS DFSMS: Using Data Sets.