Perform the following steps at the primary
site in preparation for remote site recovery.
Create backups of your VSAM spheres:
Create backups
of your VSAM spheres regularly. The more often you create backups
and send them to the remote site, the less time it takes to forward
recover the VSAM spheres at the remote site. Any utility can be used
to create backups of your VSAM spheres, but CICS® VR's
ability to automatically restore the backups differs based on your
backup utility selection.
An important factor to consider when
selecting your backup utility is how the backups are restored at the
remote site. CICS VR can help to automate this restore process
for certain backup utilities. How your backups are restored at the
remote site is based on the following types of backup utilities.
- DFSMShsm logical backup
- If you create DFSMShsm logical backups, use the CICS VR
panel interface to create a job that automatically restores the VSAM
spheres from their latest backups, then performs a forward recovery
on the restored VSAM spheres. You also need to send the DFSMShsm control
data sets (CDS) and journal to the remote site, then perform steps
to update the remote site's DFSMShsm control data sets.
These steps are explained in DFSMShsm logical backup on tape – at the primary site.
- DFSMShsm full volume dump
- If you create a DFSMShsm full volume dump, use
the CICS VR panel interface to create a job that
automatically restores the VSAM spheres from the dump, then performs
a forward recovery on the restored VSAM spheres. You also need to
send the DFSMShsm control data sets (CDS) and journal
to the remote site, then perform steps to update the remote site's DFSMShsm control
data sets. These steps are explained in DFSMShsm full volume dump on tape – at the primary site.
- ABARS (aggregate backup and recovery support)
- You
can use the CICS VR panel interface to create a job that
automatically restores the VSAM spheres from ABARS backups, then performs
a forward recovery on the restored VSAM spheres. This applies if all the
following items are true:
- CICS VR was notified when the ABARS backups
were created. This means that the CICS VR
address space was active, and the DFSMSdss logical
dump registration control default was activated when the ABARS backup
job was submitted.
- The ABARS backups were sent to the remote recovery site and cataloged.
- The RCDS EXPORT utility exported ABARS backup information. This
means that the BACKUP keyword was specified on the RCDS EXPORT command.
If any of the previous items are not true, you must restore the
VSAM spheres manually from their backups made by ABARS at the remote
site. After the restore, you can call the CICS VR
panel interface to create and submit a forward recovery job.
- DFSMSdss
- You can use the CICS VR panel interface to create
a job that automatically restores the VSAM spheres from DFSMSdss logical
copies or dumps, then performs a forward recovery on the restored
VSAM spheres if the following items are true:
- CICS VR was notified when the DFSMSdss logical
copies or dumps were created, the CICSVRBACKUP keyword was added to
the job and the CICS VR address space was active when the copy
or dump job was submitted.
- The DFSMSdss backups were sent to the remote
recovery site and cataloged.
- The RCDS EXPORT utility exported DFSMSdss backup
information, the BACKUP keyword was specified on the RCDS EXPORT command.
If any of the previous items are not true, then the VSAM spheres
first must be restored manually at the remote site from the DFSMSdss backups.
Then, you can call the CICS VR panel interface to create
and submit a forward recovery job.
- Backups registered through the file copy notification service
- If you want to use the CICS VR panel interface to select
backups for restore that were previously registered to CICS VR
through the file copy notification service, you need to:
- Send the backups to the remote recovery site.
- Send the associated restore skeletons to the remote recovery site,
and define them to CICS VR at the remote recovery
site. Restore skeletons can either be added as a member to the SDWWSENU
data set, using the characteristics of this PDS), or as a member of
another PDS allocated to the DWWSLIB ddname.
- Export backup information from the RCDS. Adding the BACKUP keyword
to the RCDS EXPORT command causes CICS VR
to add registered backup information to the sequential data set produced
by the export utility.
- Other backup utilities
- If
you use any other backup utility not previously mentioned, you must
ensure that RCDS information is exported to the remote site, along
with the proper restore skeletons and actual backups. The RCDS information
is exported using the RCDS command as described in Using the RCDS utility to export your RCDS. When the resources are available on the
remote site, the CICS VR panels can be used to create a recovery
job, as described in Using other products as your backup utility.
Run LOGOFLOGS SCAN:
After CICS applications
have updated the VSAM spheres, call the CICS VR
log of logs scan utility. The log of logs scan utility informs CICS VR
of the latest updates performed by CICS against
VSAM spheres. CICS VR then uses this information to build
a recovery job for the VSAM spheres. Run LOGOFLOGS SCAN regularly
so that CICS VR has the latest recovery information.
This recovery information is stored in the RCDS. See Setting up the log of logs scan utility (scan) for more information about the log
of logs scan utility.
Create a log stream copy:
Start the CICS VR
log stream copy utility to copy the log records from an MVS™ log
stream to a sequential data set. Perform this
step after your VSAM spheres have been updated by CICS applications,
batch applications, or both, and after you have run the log of logs
scan utility. Send these log stream copies to the remote site in
preparation for remote site recovery.
Log stream copies must
be made regularly. CICS VR at the remote site can
only forward recover a VSAM sphere up to the latest log record on
the latest log stream copy. If updates were performed against a VSAM
sphere, but these log records are never copied from the MVS log
stream and sent to the remote site, CICS VR
at the remote site can not perform a forward recovery that applies
the latest updates. See Using the log stream copy utility to copy your MVS log streams for more
information about the log stream copy utility.
EXPORT the RCDS:
The CICS VR
RCDS contains all information required to create a forward recovery
job for a VSAM sphere. Information such as when a VSAM sphere was
updated and which log stream and log stream copy the log records are
located on is stored in the RCDS. Invoking the CICS VR
RCDS utility with the EXPORT keyword specified extracts the recovery
information from the primary site's RCDS and store it into a sequential
data set.
Optionally, you can also add the CA and
BACKUP keywords to the RCDS EXPORT command to extract information
related to change accumulation and backups respectively from the RCDS
into the sequential data set.
Note: If you export information related
to change accumulation and backups from the RCDS, you must also send
the actual change accumulation data sets and backups to the remote
recovery site. Catalog the change accumulation data sets and backups
prior to invoking any CICS VR utility at the remote recovery
site.
CICS VR at the remote site then
can import the contents of this sequential data set into the remote
site's RCDS. Then, use the CICS VR panel interface to create
and submit a recovery job for the VSAM spheres.
It
is important that you export the RCDS only after the log of logs have
been scanned and a log stream copy has been created. Both of these
activities update information in the RCDS. Be sure that the RCDS
you export has the latest recovery information. If you were to first
export the RCDS, then create a log stream copy, CICS VR
at the remote site would not be aware of the log stream copy. Therefore, CICS VR
could not create a job that uses the latest log stream copy to perform
a forward recovery. See Using the RCDS utility to export your RCDS for more
information.
If you use a copy product such as IDCAMS REPRO
to create a copy of the RCDS for use at the remote site, be aware
that the remote site's copied RCDS assumes that the remote site's
environment and resources are exactly the same as they were at the
primary site.
Note: It is not mandatory that you send the contents
from the primary site's RCDS to the remote site, with the RCDS utility
or a copy product. If you do not send the contents of the primary
site's RCDS, you need to record all necessary recovery information;
for example, log stream copy names or log activity times, manually
at the primary site. Then, create and submit the recovery job manually
at the remote site, without using the CICS VR
panel interface, to recover the VSAM spheres.
Send the information to the remote site:
Now
that you have copied all information required by CICS VR
at the remote site, you need to send it to the remote site. How you
transmit the VSAM sphere backups, log stream copies, and exported
RCDS is up to you and must fit into your remote site disaster recovery
plan. For example, you might want to place everything on a tape and
then physically send this tape to the remote site. Another approach
might include the use of a product such as Extended Remote Copy (XRC)
to send data to a remote site electronically.
Frequency of steps 1 - 5: Steps 1 through 5 must be repeated
on a regular basis. In the event that you have to use the remote
site to recover VSAM spheres, CICS VR only recovers the VSAM
spheres with the recovery information that was sent to the remote
site. Therefore, the recovered VSAM spheres are as current only as
the latest remote site recovery information.