Question

Replication of Volume Shadowcopy Service Snapshots with DFS-R

Asked by: ecclefechan

Hi Experts,

I am setting up a new backup system in the following way:
 - the Primary Backup Server (Windows 2003 R2 Storage Server) uses Backup Exec 12 Continuous Protection Server (CPS) to back the File Server data up to disk.
 - Backup Exec 12 CPS creates VSS snapshots of the backed up data at hourly intervals, providing multiple roll-back points to restore data from.
 - the Primary Backup Server replicates all backup data - including the VSS snapshots - to a Secondary Backup Server (Windows 2003 R2 Storage Server) at an offsite location using DFS-R.

The question is:
a) will DFS-R replicate the VSS snapshots from the Primary Backup Server to the Secondary Backup Server, and;
b) presuming the VSS snapshots are replicated to the Secondary Backup Server, is it going to be able to read these files in order to restore data from them?

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2008-07-28 at 09:47:19ID23601396
Tags

Microsoft, Symantec

,

Windows, Backup Exec

,

2003, 12, Continuous Protection Server

Topics

Windows 2003 Server

,

Backup & Restore Software

,

Backup Exec

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Symantec Backup Exec Snapshot Error
    Symantec Backup Exec is newly installed in Windows 2003 R2 Server, I checked the log of each backup job and got this error: JOB COMPLETION STATUS: COMPLETED WITH EXCEPTIONS EXCEPTIONS: Backup - MyServerName V-79-57344-34110 - AOFO: Initialization Failure on: "\\MyS...
  2. backup exec - VSS snapshot error
    This is my first question / post, so hi everybody... I have a recurring problem with our daily backup - running on Windows 2003 Server. The following error appears in the backup report each day: V-79-57344-34110 - AOFO: Initialization failure on: "System?State&...
  3. Offsite Backup
    I have a buffalo terastaion 1 terabyte that I want to use for our company's offsite backups. I want to use it in our other office 50 miles away to store an offsite backup of all our data. Right now we use Veritas to backup to a sony AIT tape drive at our office. I want to be...
  4. Offsite backup (mirror) with built in DFS-R
    Hello everyone, Im looking into setting up an offsite backup for one of my customers. From what Ive been reading DFS-R built into Windows 2003 R2 should do the trick. Heres the scenario that I have& There are two servers; one is a current 2003 ENTERPRISE R2 tha...
  5. FAILED: Unable to create a VSS snapshot of the source v…
    I recently installed VMware Converter 4.0. But I got FAILED: Unable to create a VSS snapshot of the source volume(s). Error code: 2147754773 (0x80042315). See the picture. I did some research on the website. But still no luck. VSS service is running.
  6. Symantec Backup Exe 12.5  VSS Snapshot error
    Backup- SRVWULON0036.fexco.ie - AOFO: Initialization failure on: "\\SRVWULON0036.fexco.ie\F:". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). V-79-10000-11217 - VSS Snapshot error. The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snap...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: honmapogPosted on 2008-07-29 at 10:11:02ID: 22113472

I'm pretty sure the snapshots will not be replicated.
I can imagine that a possible workaround would be to use the shadow copy functionality on the target server to create snapshots from the replicated data on the target server.

 

by: ecclefechanPosted on 2008-07-30 at 08:45:36ID: 22121620

Hi honmapog,

The work around you suggested does seem to work, as I've just tested it.  It is missing a vital piece of functionality though - the ability to create a snapshot Retention Policy such as in Backup Exec CPS console.  This is quite important (sorry I should have mentioned this in the first post) because we can then keep snapshots of various ages - weekly, monthly, etc - rather than simply losing the oldest snapshot.

Would there be any other way of providing this functionality intact?
DFS-R seemed like a good bet because it does byte-level changes with throttle-able bandwidth.  Great for remote backup systems like this, where we've only got 1.5mbps bandwidth.

Cheers

 

by: honmapogPosted on 2008-07-30 at 10:44:03ID: 22122808

I can't think of another way of doing this at the moment.

 

by: davidt67Posted on 2008-08-08 at 03:47:44ID: 22188766

Why not use Symantec CPS or BEX to copy the snapshots from the primary to the secondary server over the WAN?  
The Symantec BEX selection list interface includes the CPS components, database, protected resources and all available snapshots, including a handy category called latest snapshot.
You can certainly craft a BEX disk to disk schedule to protect the CPS snapshots.
You can also use CPS to replicate the primary CPS store to a secondary CPS store, which would have its own snapshot retention policy.

 

by: ecclefechanPosted on 2008-08-08 at 04:07:46ID: 22188840

Hi davidt67,

Yes that's exactly what I'm now going to do, so I'm glad you've added that comment (at least means I'm not crazy :-).

The reason I was hoping to use the DFS-R system was that it has very good over-the-wire compression, as well as byte level (delta) changes.  With relatively low bandwidth this would have helped quite a bit, however the Backup Exec built in solutions will hopefully suffice.

Cheers

 

by: davidt67Posted on 2008-08-08 at 07:44:32ID: 22190332

Interestingly we use FRS on older systems and DFS-R on the newer storage systems within regions,
but we then use CPS to replicate inter-continentally from remote offices and branches to the datacenters.  

I guess at some point someone decided CPS was as good as if not better than DFS-R over WAN links?

 

by: ecclefechanPosted on 2008-08-08 at 08:00:28ID: 22190495

Yeah that's interesting.  Good to hear someone else is doing the same thing.  Perhaps the CPS compression is better than the DFS-R?  I'll soon find out!  :-)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...