Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) For Continuous Data Protection (Part 1)

By Joshua L. Konkle DCIG, LLC

In analyzing InMage DR-Scout and the backup, archiving and recovery industry in general, I'm always digging a little deeper for success stories, technology improvements and corporate histories. In early January, Rajeev Alturi and I spoke by phone on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Rajeev and I discussed the nuances of Microsoft's VSS and how InMage leverages the technology, regardless of operating system, chipset and application system versions.

Microsoft's VSS works by using three pieces a requester, writer and provider. If you have heard about this, then skip to the last paragraph and wait for part 2 due later this week. The requester is your traditional backup solution. Requester's send collection inquiries to the application you want to protect. This application must understand the collection inquiry sent to it by the requester and needs a writer designed to support the application data and data types. The writer is written by the application developers, not the backup vendor, to ensure the most stable and consistent recoveries.