Comparing VSAM RLS and L-Serv

Products

• COMMON SERVICES FOR Z/OS

Issue/Introduction

Are VSAM Record-Level Sharing (RLS) and L-Serv equivalent to each other? Or are there differences?

Resolution

Yes, but RLS has some specific limitations:

• RLS can only run on a GRS-PLEX, requiring shared DASD.
  
  Note: L-Serv does not limit the data access to a GRS-PLEX and does not require shared DASD.
  
  
• RLS access is supported for KSDS, ESDS, RRDS datasets and VSAM alternate indexes but does not support ELIB VSAM.
  
  Note: L-Serv does support ELIB VSAM (ESDS).

 

Additional Information

VSAM record-level sharing (RLS) and L-Serv file manager are not available for VSAM linear data sets.
For further information, please read Chapter
"Common Components and Services for z/OS>L-Serv"
"z/OS DFSMS Introduction>Managing Data with DFSMSdfp>DFSMSdfp Data Set Organizations>VSAM Data Sets"
"z/OS DFSMS Introduction>Managing Data with DFSMSdfp>DFSMSdfp Data Set Organizations>VSAM Record-Level Sharing"