A vital record specification chain is a data set or volume vital record specification and all of the name vital record specifications that are chained from it. A vital record specification subchain starts with a data set vital record specification, name vital record specification with retention information, or a group of vital records chained using the RMM ADDVRS ANDVRS operand. A subchain includes all the vital record specifications chained from the start of the subchain until the next subchain starts. The subchain ends before the next vital record in the chain that contains retention information. Both a vital record specification chain and a vital record specification subchain can be one or more vital record specifications.

Figure 1 andFigure 2 show a vital record specification chain where a data set vital record specification defines the policy to retain five cycles of data set A.*, one cycle to be stored in the home location. The NEXTVRS operand in the vital record specification shown in Figure 1 points to N1.

RMM ADDVRS DSNAME('A.*') CYCLES COUNT(5) STORENUMBER(1) LOCATION(HOME) -
     NEXTVRS(N1)

Figure 1 uses the name vital record specification N1 shown in Figure 2 to request that 4 cycles of the data set in the LOCAL storage location be retained.

RMM ADDVRS NAME(N1) STORENUMBER(4) LOCATION(LOCAL)

The data set vital record specification defines five cycles as the maximum retention value. DFSMSrmm retains one cycle of data set A.* in the home location and four in the LOCAL storage location.

In Figure 3, a vital record specification is defined to retain a maximum of 20 cycles for all data set matching to the mask B.*. DFSMSrmm retains one cycle in the home location, ten cycles in the LOCAL storage location, and the last nine cycles back in the home location. DFSMSrmm retains extra cycles in the home location by default.

RMM ADDVRS DSNAME('B.*') CYCLES COUNT(20) STORENUMBER(1) LOCATION(HOME) -
     NEXTVRS(N2)
 RMM ADDVRS NAME(N2) STORENUMBER(10) LOCATION(LOCAL)

As part of DFSMSrmm inventory management vital records processing, DFSMSrmm verifies that the NEXTVRS specified in a vital record specification exists. If the NEXTVRS does not exist, DFSMSrmm issues an informational message EDG2230I, retains any matching data sets, and sets a return code of 4.

See Chaining retention and movement policies for information about chaining vital record specifications.