MVS blocks compared with log stream copies

In order to limit the amount of data that is kept in the forward recovery and log of logs log streams, you might want to consider creating CICS® VR log stream copies of the forward recovery log streams.

Then, you can set a retention period for MVS™ blocks that is smaller than the retention period setting for log stream copies.

For example, if your environment limits the amount of data that can be kept in forward recovery log streams to three days, but you want to be able to recover VSAM data sets from updates made over the past seven days, you might want to consider the following setup:

By setting an MVS blocks retention period that is smaller than the log stream copies retention period, you can limit the amount of data retained in the MVS log streams without losing the ability to recover VSAM spheres from updates made over the required amount of days. However, be sure you are creating and keeping backups according to your recovery requirements.