Understanding group restore capability

CICS® VR provides group restore capabilities for backup products which create backups containing data for several data sets.

Some backup products can create a backup for a number of data sets. For example, ABARS can create a backup for an aggregate group, containing data for hundreds data sets. Also, a DFSMSdss DUMP backup can include backups of several data sets.

CICS VR provides individual and group restore capability, for IBM® and non-IBM backup products, by specifying two types of restore skeletons that differ in their names and constructions. A skeleton for group restoring VSAM spheres from a backup data set has a “0” character in the sixth position of the member name to distinguish it from the corresponding skeleton for an individual restore. For example; if the backup product name is FDRPR, the skeleton member name for an individual restore is DWWFDRPR, and for a group restore is DWWFD0PR.

Individual restore: When an individual restore skeleton is applied, a separate JCL step is generated for the restore of each of the selected VSAM spheres, even if they were backed up in the same backup data set. See Restoring a backup that was registered through the file copy notification service for detailed information about skeletons for individual restore from a backup.
Group restore: When a group restore skeleton is applied, a single JCL step is generated to restore those selected VSAM spheres that were backed up in the same backup data set. Thus, those selected VSAM spheres are restored with a single run of the backup product, instead of requiring a run for each individual data set.; If both types of restore skeletons for the same backup product are found in the SDWWSENU PDS, a group restore skeleton, with “0” in the sixth position of the member name, is used during CICS VR recovery construction.; A group restore skeleton implements high level accessibility for dialog variables related to the selected backup data set. The variables listed here are substituted with their values directly when they are specified in a group restore skeleton.

Table 1. Group restore skeleton variables supported by CICS VR
Variable name	Format	Length (Bytes)	Description	Source
CBUDSN	Char	44	Backup data set name.	RCDS
CBPROD	Char	3	Backup product identifier as specified in the backup_product parameter during notification.	RCDS
CBTYPE	Char	2	Backup type identifier as specified in the backup_type parameter during notification.	RCDS
CBVOLTBL	Char	8	Table that contains the volumes on which the backup resides, as entered in the optional volume_list_area parameter during notification. This table can be used to reference each volume using the CBVOL variable.	Generated by CICS VR
CBVOLNUM	Char	3	Number of volumes on which the backup resides, as specified in the optional number_of_volumes parameter during notification.	RCDS
CBVOL	Char	6	Volume on which the backup resides, as specified in the optional volume_list_area parameter during notification. Use this variable with the CBVOLTBL variable to reference each volume name individually.	RCDS
CBUNIT	Char	8	Unit (device type) of the volume(s) on which the backup resides, as specified in the optional device_type parameter during notification.	RCDS
CBSEQNUM	Char	4	Sequence number of the backup, as specified in the optional sequence_number variable during notification.	RCDS
CBOPTTBL	Char	8	Table that contains the value specified for the optional optional_information parameter during notification. The specified optional information can contain a maximum of 256 bytes that CICS VR divides into four rows of 64 bytes in this table. This table can be used to reference each 64 bytes of optional information with the CBINFO variable.	Generated by CICS VR
CBINFO	Char	64	Use this variable with the CBOPTTBL variable to reference each row of 64 bytes of the value specified for the optional optional_information parameter during notification.	RCDS
CBKSPH	Char	8	Table that contains values for dialog variables relating to the VSAM spheres backed up in this backup data set. Each row of the table relates to a specific VSAM sphere and contains all variables listed in Table 1.	Generated by CICS VR
CNEWN	Char	3	Indicates if a new target data set name was entered through the CICS VR panel interface at least for one VSAM sphere backed in the backup data set. This variable contains one of the following values: YES At least one of the backed VSAM spheres has CNEWQ variable set to `YES`. NO All VSAM spheres are restored from this backup data set with their original names.	Panel interface
CNEWV	Char	3	Indicates if a new volume and unit was specified for restore through the CICS VR panel interface for at least one VSAM sphere backed in the backup data set. This variable contains one of thefollowing values: YES At least one of the backed spheres has CNEWVOLQ variable set to `YES`. NO All backed VSAM spheres have the CNEWVOLQ variable set to `NO`.	Panel interface

To obtain access to dialog variables related to VSAM sphere parameters, use the )DOT and )ENDDOT statements:

)DOT &CBKSPH
     additional statements  
)ENDDOT

Any statements between the )DOT and )ENDDOT statements are processed for each row in the specified table. For example; the following fragment generates a list of VSAM spheres backed up in the backup data set:

)DOT &CBKSPH
   &CSPH 
)ENDDOT

CICS VR ships two group restore skeletons in the SDWWSENU data set. These are DWWDS0LD and DWWAB0RS intended for group restoring from DFSMSdss DUMP or DFSMShsm ABARS backups accordingly. These skeletons can be used as samples for creating user-written restore skeletons.