What are KSDS, ESDS,RRDS, LDS VSAM ?. Concept and Structure of Vsams

Types of Vsam and its concepts:
Vsam supports the following types of file organizations:
1. ESDS  2. RRDS   3.KSDS
ESDS (Entry Sequenced Data Set)
ESDS can be accessed sequentially or directly. They can not be accessed skip sequentially. ESDS are mostly where we write logs and it can be accessed sequentially.
ESDS record can be located sequentially  by checking  each record, starting from the beginning of the data set.Also an ESDS record can be located directly if the relative byte address(RBA) of the record in known.This location can be derived from some previous search or by remembering the address where the record was inserted.

ESDS Data Insertion

 New  records must be inserted at the end of the file. Each record is inserted at the end of the latest CI.IF there is no enough space in the CI, then a new CI is started.
Deletion of records physically is not possible.If we do not need one record, we can mark it as deleted , but it will remain in the dataset until the ESDS is re built again.
Updation of the records can be done where they are provided the length remains the same.If the length changes, the record must be marked as deleted and added as a new record at the end.

RRDS (Relative Record Data Set)
RRDS is another type of VSAM.It consists of fixed length areas called slots. These are pre-formatted when the data is created, or whenever a new CA is created.Records are inserted into the slots.

RRDS and its slots

Advantages of RRDS over ESDS:
In RRDS, Records can be added and deleted within these slots.
Records can be directly accessed by specifying slot number known as RRN. The first slot has RRN 1  .We can use skip sequential processing for RRDS
The Application program can insert into any free slot which is know as Direct insertion. The application program can request  the record to be inserted into next free slot which is known as sequential insertion.
While deletion, a record can be deleted and slot can be re used.
RRDS Structure:
There is one RDF for every slot in RRDS. Each of the RDF holds the information whether its associated slot is empty or not

RRDS  Internal Structure

In RRDS, all the records must be of same length. Unlike ESDS, we can not have Spanned record in RRDS & We Can not have Free space in RRDS.
LDS: (Linear Data set)
Linear Data sets holds the records in the form of strings of data. There are no CIDF  or RDF. Most common usage of LDS in DB2, which uses LDS to store objects.
Internally Z/OS  uses  DATA IN VIRTUAL(DIV)  services or WINDOWS SERVICS to insert/update/ delete the data.

KSDS (Key Sequenced Data Set)
In a KSDS, we have a cluster which consists of two parts ; Data part and the Index Part
We need to have the data to be sorted when its inserted into a KSDS. The Key part can be 1-255 contiguous bytes and must be unique. Each Key points to the data part. As we Insert,update or delete a record, this Index component gets automatically.

KSDS Vsam Cluster

The Rounded Yellow part signifies the Vsam Name and is know as the VSAM Cluster. It relates the Data and the Index part.  It is not a file, just  a catalog entry.
Records in a KSDS can be updated and their length can be changed.If he record is reduced in length, then the remaining space can be used as free space, else if the record length increases, the record is moved to Free space to make room for the new updated record.

Check here on How to Define KSDS,ESDS,RRDS,LDS with IDCAMS