VSS can be used with most any Windows backup application to safely quiesce NTFS and any applications (like Exchange for example) that are tied into VSS. Replication Manager performs a similar function.
If you want to do manual VSS snaps, you would use either diskshadow or vssadmin (depending on your version of Windows). With that tool, you can create consistent hardware snapshots (array based snapshots). Diskshadow is the easier of the two to use in my opinion and is available on Win2k8. Diskshadow also lets you easily group multiple devices and snap them consistently.
To restore, you can promote the snapshot from Unisphere to a new device and copy the files you wish to restore. Alternatively, you can issue a restore operation from Unisphere to roll back the whole device to a previous point in time.
I'm summarizing a fair amount in these responses. It is best that you familiarize yourself with the VNXe Data Protection documentation for the full story.
The EMC install of VSS is the provider piece that plugs into the VSS framework. It enables the VSS framework to detect if a device is an EMC VNXe device, and if so it will provide the ability for VSS to create an array-based snapshot rather than a software snapshot (Microsoft shadow copy).
VSS only applies to iSCSI storage resources. There isn't an easy way to let users recover individual files on an NTFS volume on an iSCSI storage resource. Promotion of the snapshot is necessary in order to access the snapshot.
For CIFS Shared Folders connected to Windows systems, users can use the "Previous Versions" tab in Windows to selectively restore individual files by themselves. This functionality is very convenient, but only works for CIFS.
Again, please refer to the VNXe documentation for examples and more detailed instruction.
tgraves1
22 Posts
0
April 5th, 2012 07:00
VSS can be used with most any Windows backup application to safely quiesce NTFS and any applications (like Exchange for example) that are tied into VSS. Replication Manager performs a similar function.
If you want to do manual VSS snaps, you would use either diskshadow or vssadmin (depending on your version of Windows). With that tool, you can create consistent hardware snapshots (array based snapshots). Diskshadow is the easier of the two to use in my opinion and is available on Win2k8. Diskshadow also lets you easily group multiple devices and snap them consistently.
To restore, you can promote the snapshot from Unisphere to a new device and copy the files you wish to restore. Alternatively, you can issue a restore operation from Unisphere to roll back the whole device to a previous point in time.
jdr75
13 Posts
0
April 5th, 2012 09:00
Thanks
What is a role of EMC VSS Windows software i have installed on win2008 ?
Emc replicator use this software to make snapshot better than based Microsoft solution ?
i have win2008R2.
About you, I need to allow user to restore file. The best practice it's to enable microsoft solution then EMC snapshot ?
tgraves1
22 Posts
1
April 5th, 2012 09:00
I'm summarizing a fair amount in these responses. It is best that you familiarize yourself with the VNXe Data Protection documentation for the full story.
The EMC install of VSS is the provider piece that plugs into the VSS framework. It enables the VSS framework to detect if a device is an EMC VNXe device, and if so it will provide the ability for VSS to create an array-based snapshot rather than a software snapshot (Microsoft shadow copy).
VSS only applies to iSCSI storage resources. There isn't an easy way to let users recover individual files on an NTFS volume on an iSCSI storage resource. Promotion of the snapshot is necessary in order to access the snapshot.
For CIFS Shared Folders connected to Windows systems, users can use the "Previous Versions" tab in Windows to selectively restore individual files by themselves. This functionality is very convenient, but only works for CIFS.
Again, please refer to the VNXe documentation for examples and more detailed instruction.
jdr75
13 Posts
0
April 5th, 2012 11:00
Thank a lot.