Changes for Version 4 Release 1

CICS® VR Version 4 Release 1 contains the following changes.

CICS VR Security
Security has been enhanced to protect the RCDS from being updated by any user. It is possible to specify that the users security profile must be checked before allowing certain information in the RCDS to be added, changed, or deleted.
RCDS REPORTS
Recovery reports can be created to identify the information required to enable recovery of a remote site. In particular, detailed information can be obtained to determine what is needed to recover a main or remote site from a disaster or to keep the site up-to-date. Other reports provide information that show when VSAM spheres were used and where the records were logged, information about each registered backup in RCDS, and information about registered mvslog copies in RCDS.
Automated Recovery
The CICS VR Automated Recovery function has been added. This provides an automatic or semi-automatic repair or reorganization of a VSAM data set after a backout failure has occurred in CICS TS, when attempting to back out changes to the data set.
Backup initiation
Backup can now be initiated using an ISPF dialog.
Automatic deregistration for change accumulation data sets
Automatic deregistration for change accumulation data sets has been added.
CICS/ESA V4R1 is no longer an IBM-supported release of CICS
None of the new functions added to CICS VR V4R1 have been designed for use or tested with CICS/ESA V4R1. Documentation specific to CICS/ESA V4R1 support has been removed from this manual to reflect the changes made in CICS VR V4R1.
Perform tasks on CICS Backout Failed spheres
CICS spheres are registered for manual recovery or reorganization after CICS notification of a backout failure. A dialog has been provided to perform these tasks using a CICS Backout Failed sphere list panel.
Running backup from CICS VR Panels
Backups can be initiated using the CICS VR ISPF dialog interface.
RCDS Reports
Recovery reports can be created to identify the information required to enable recovery of a remote site. In particular, detailed information can be obtained to determine what is needed to recover a main or remote site from a disaster or to keep the site up-to-date.
Local/GMT switch support for the CICS VR registered backup names list
The CICS VR VSAM sphere list secondary window contains a List pull-down menu which provides a List backup names option. The dialog has been enhanced by adding support for GMT or Local time format switches. This choice of times allows viewing the actual names of the CICS VR registered backups for non- DFSMShsm backups, with backup times in the format that you require. This facility is provided on the CICS VR backup list secondary window only.
Batch Backout
Performance of the Batch Backout utility has been increased.
Logstream names
An option has been added, REALDDN, to use either real DD names or generated names for the logstream of VSAM sphere changes.
RCDS and DWW1558S message
The message DWW1558S is no longer displayed incorrectly.
Log stream copy utility enhancement
Cursor control, TOD timestamp and delete functions have been added to the log stream copy utility. You can use new keywords on the LOGSTREAMCOPY command to:
  • Set and reposition a “start of copy” cursor to control where log stream records are read from.
  • Repeat reads to produce additional exact copies of log stream records.
  • Delete log stream records. Deletion is only permitted if the CICS VR global default LCDEL is set to YES.
  • Specify a TOD timestamp for the start and end of copying, which provides more granularity than the existing keywords.
Functional enhancements to the precopy exit
  • The DEFEXIT command has been extended to provide greater compatibility with older exit routines.
  • Additional documentation is provided about the log stream records created by the LOGSTREAMCOPY command.