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.