Veritas™ System Recovery 18 Service Pack 3 Management Solution Administrator's Guide

About backing up VSS-aware databases

Veritas System Recovery 18 Management Solution can co-exist with Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow-copy Service) to automate the process of backing up VSS-aware databases such as the following:

VSS-aware databases are auto-enabled and cannot be turned off. VSS lets IT administrators create a shadow copy backup of drives on a server. The shadow copy includes all files (including open files).

When a backup policy starts, Veritas System Recovery alerts the VSS that a recovery point is about to be created. VSS then communicates this information to the VSS-aware databases and puts them into a quiesced (sleep) state. (Veritas System Recovery always attempts to communicate with VSS if it is installed on a desktop or server and tries to provide VSS with information to quiesce databases.)

While in this quiesced state, the databases continue to write to transaction logs. Veritas System Recovery takes an instantaneous snapshot that also includes any open files. When a snapshot is complete, VSS is notified, the databases are activated, and the transaction logs continue writing to the database. (To verify that there are no errors and that VSS is running, you should check the Microsoft error logs.)

While the recovery point is created from the snapshot, the databases and the applications return to an active state and continue to write data. This kind of integration means that you can back up business-critical databases at anytime during the day without it affecting productivity.