HP 3PAR VSS Provider 2.2.2 for Microsoft Windows User Guide (QL226-97305, December 2013)

host. VSS enforces this by not allowing auto-import shadow copies of dynamic disks. A
requestor should not import a transportable shadow copy back to the same host. This is a
limitation on Dynamic Disk.
• Create Shadow Copy Volumes Read-Only and Hidden.
VSS sets flags on each affected LUN such that the resulting shadow copy will be hidden and
read-only when detected by a Windows Server system. Drive letters or mount points or both
are not automatically assigned. VSS maintains these flags throughout the lifecycle of a shadow
copy. Modification of these flags might lead to unpredictable results.
• Shadow Copy Attribute Context.
The following shadow copy attributes are supported by passing in the shadow copy context:
◦ The shadow copy is persistent across reboots.
◦ The shadow copy is not automatically deleted when the shadow copy requestor process
ends. The shadow copy can be deleted only by a call to:
IvssBackupComponents::DeleteSnapshots
◦ No writers are allowed in creating the shadow copy.
◦ The shadow copy is currently not exposed to the requestor.
◦ A copy-on-write mechanism is used to implement shadow copies.
The following shadow copy attributes are not supported in the current release of HP 3PAR
VSS Provider for Microsoft Windows:
◦ All shadow copies are created with a copy-on-write mechanism.
◦ All shadow copies are hidden.
• Taking a snapshot on a System Drive is not supported.
With the additional System Writer involved on the System Drive, taking snapshots on a
database where its physical location is on the System Drive is not supported.
• Volume-wide snapshot.
A virtual copy is taken of the entire volume. Data outside the backup scope that might reside
on the same snapshot LUNs is not restorable from the virtual copy.
• Same snapshot set containing VVs from different sytems is not supported.
HP 3PAR VSS Provider can not support volumes from different systems to be processed within
the same snapshot set.
• Importing snapshots created on one Windows Server version to another is not supported. This
is a Microsoft VSS limitation.
• All snapshots imported through VSS will be exposed via host name only. Export on a specific
port and matched set is not supported.
• All snapshots imported through VSS will be exposed to the first available host name registered
in the same HP 3PAR Storage System that belongs to the current Windows system.
Special Considerations 9