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BP1013 Best Practices for Enhancing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Data Protection and Availability 6
the SAN level. They open new perspectives in dealing with the data protection strategies
when integrated with backup applications.
• Rapid creation of a recovery point: The process of creating a SAN snapshot takes very
little time. Thus it opens up the opportunity of establishing more frequent application
recovery points, providing the choice of a more granular recovery point objective for the
application data.
• Fast recovery: Recovering from a SAN snapshot is a fast operation because the dataset to
be rolled back resides on the SAN and does not have to change media (tape to disk, or disk
to disk over network), but it is already available to be brought online when required.
1.4 Terminology
The following terms will be used throughout this document.
Group: Consists of one or more Dell EqualLogic PS Series arrays connected to an IP network that
work together to provide SAN resources to host servers.
Pool: Storage space that each member (array) is assigned to after being added to a group.
Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition: Microsoft
®
Windows Server
®
application offering the
management and scheduling of application-consistent Smart Copy snapshots of Exchange Server
databases (integrated with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service) leveraging the built-in snapshot,
clone, and replication facilities in PS Series arrays.
Snapshot: Point-in-time copy of the data residing on a given volume.
Clone: Physical copy of the data on any given volumes created in the same data pool.
Snapshot reserve: Storage space reserved as a percentage of each volume used to store snapshots.
Microsoft Volume Shadow Service (VSS): Technology included in Microsoft
®
Windows
®
that allows
taking shadow copies of a data/volume in a consistent state, even when it has a lock.
VSS Requester: A component that requests the creation or manipulation of a shadow copy
VSS Writer: A component that guarantees the consistency of the data set to be backed up, typically
provided by the application or by a system component.
VSS Provider: A component that creates and maintains the shadow copies in the software or in the
hardware level.
DAG: Database Availability Group is a pool of networked servers that hosts multiple copies of the same
Exchange databases.