Microsoft vss 2008

We expect applications with large numbers of stores to leverage this feature to shrink backup windows.

Exchange backups and restores are a very typical example where this helps. An Exchange server may have as many as 50 storage groups all of which are backed up independently. In fact it's no co-incidence that the first writer to take advantage of this feature is Exchange SP1.

Writers must also be capable of managing state between multiple backup and restore sessions. System state writers assist with backing up and restoring the operating system, drivers and services.

There may be several such writers on the system depending on the roles and features that are installed. The point is that some applications create log files. For example, Exchange server creates a transaction log file. If you are using only Windows Server Backup to protect the applications, you can use any option to backup the data. For this reason, the shadow copy LUN must use the same quality of storage as the original production LUN to ensure that performance is not impacted after the recovery operation.

If LUN resynchronization is used instead, the hardware provider can maintain the shadow copy on storage that is less expensive than production-quality storage. All of the operations listed are LUN-level operations. If you attempt to recover a specific volume by using LUN resynchronization, you are unwittingly going to revert all the other volumes that are sharing the LUN.

Shadow Copies for Shared Folders uses the Volume Shadow Copy Service to provide point-in-time copies of files that are located on a shared network resource, such as a file server. With Shadow Copies for Shared Folders, users can quickly recover deleted or changed files that are stored on the network. Because they can do so without administrator assistance, Shadow Copies for Shared Folders can increase productivity and reduce administrative costs. With a hardware provider that is designed for use with the Volume Shadow Copy Service, you can create transportable shadow copies that can be imported onto servers within the same subsystem for example, a SAN.

These shadow copies can be used to seed a production or test installation with read-only data for data mining. With the Volume Shadow Copy Service and a storage array with a hardware provider that is designed for use with the Volume Shadow Copy Service, it is possible to create a shadow copy of the source data volume on one server, and then import the shadow copy onto another server or back to the same server.

This process is accomplished in a few minutes, regardless of the size of the data. The transport process is accomplished through a series of steps that use a shadow copy requester a storage-management application that supports transportable shadow copies.

Import the shadow copy to a server that is connected to the SAN you can import to a different server or the same server. A transportable shadow copy that is created on Windows Server cannot be imported onto a server that is running Windows Server or Windows Server R2. A transportable shadow copy that was created on Windows Server or Windows Server R2 cannot be imported onto a server that is running Windows Server However, a shadow copy that is created on Windows Server can be imported onto a server that is running Windows Server R2 and vice versa.

Shadow copies are read-only. It works only if there is a hardware provider on the storage array. Shadow copy transport can be used for a number of purposes, including tape backups, data mining, and testing. In the case of a hard disk drive backup, the shadow copy created is also the backup. Data can be copied off the shadow copy for a restore or the shadow copy can be used for a fast recovery scenario—for example, LUN resynchronization or LUN swapping.

When data is copied from the shadow copy to tape or other removable media, the content that is stored on the media constitutes the backup. The shadow copy itself can be deleted after the data is copied from it.

It depends on the backup software that you used. Most backup programs support this scenario for data but not for system state backups. It depends on the backup software you used. If you create a shadow copy on Windows Server , you cannot use it on Windows Server Also, if you create a shadow copy on Windows Server , you cannot restore it on Windows Server However, you should not do this.

VSS is designed to create shadow copies of entire volumes. Temporary files, such as paging files, are automatically omitted from shadow copies to save space. To exclude specific files from shadow copies, use the following registry key: FilesNotToSnapshot. The FilesNotToSnapshot registry key is intended to be used only by applications. Users who attempt to use it will encounter limitations such as the following:. Check the product support section of the Web site of the company that created the backup program.

There may be a product update that you can download and install to fix the problem. If not, contact the company's product support department. The shadow copy storage area or "diff area" is the location where the data for the shadow copy that is created by the system software provider is stored. The diff area can be located on any local volume.

However, it must be located on an NTFS volume that has enough space to store it. If there is a preconfigured manual association between the original volume and the shadow copy volume location, then that location is used. If the previous two criteria do not provide a location, the shadow copy service chooses a location based on available free space.

If more than one volume is being shadow copied, the shadow copy service creates a list of possible snapshot locations based on the size of free space, in descending order. The number of locations provided is equal to the number of volumes being shadow copied. If the volume being shadow copied is one of the possible locations, then a local association is created.

Otherwise an association with the volume with the most available space is created. However, persistent shadow copies can be made only for NTFS volumes. In addition, at least one volume mounted on the system must be an NTFS volume. The maximum number of shadow copied volumes in a single shadow copy set is Note that this is not the same as the number of shadow copies. The max number is of software shadow copies for each volume is However, by default you can only maintain 64 shadow copies that are used by the Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature.

DiskShadow is a VSS requester that you can use to manage all the hardware and software snapshots that you can have on a system. DiskShadow includes commands such as the following:. DiskShadow is available only on Windows Server operating systems. It is not available on Windows client operating systems. VssAdmin is used to create, delete, and list information about shadow copies.