Windows-powered NAS devices and snapshots

Windows-powered NAS devices and snapshots

This chapter excerpt from Inside Windows Storage, by Dilip C. Naik is printed with permission from Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall, Copyright 2003.

Click here for the chapter download or purchase the entire book here.

Microsoft offers a version of Windows NT that is sometimes referred to as "Embedded NT" and more often as the Server Appliance Kit, or SAK. This offering is based on Windows 2000, which does not have a volume shadow copy service. For the benefit of original equipment manufacturers that use the SAK to build NAS devices, Microsoft has licensed a snapshot solution and included it in the SAK. This snapshot product is the Persistent Storage Manager (PSM) from Columbia Data Products. This section provides a quick overview of PSM architecture and functionality.

PSM architecture is shown in Figure 5.9. PSM has a user mode component that facilitates snapshot management, including initiation and scheduling of snapshot creation. The snapshots are created via the services of the PSM filter driver that is layered over the disk class

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

    By submitting your registration information to SearchWindowsServer.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchWindowsServer.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

driver as shown in Figure 5.9.

PSM offers the ability to create multiple snapshots and manage them. Snapshots can be created according to a schedule, and older snapshots may be saved or written over. One can also "mount" the older snapshots and use them for backup or other purposes. Each snapshot has a date and timestamp associated with it.


WINDOWS BACKUP AND RESTORE TECHNOLOGIES

  Introduction
 Tip #1: Reasons for backup and restore
 Tip #2: Backup problems
 Tip #3: Backup classifications
 Tip #4: Windows 2000 backup utility
 Tip #5: Techniques to create a volume snapshot
 Tip #6: XP and Windows 2003 volume shadow copy service
 Tip #7: Windows-powered NAS devices and snapshots
 Tip #8: Network Data Management Protocol
 Tip #9: Practical implications
 Tip #10: Summary

About the author: Dilip C. Naik has more than twelve years of experience in various roles at Microsoft, including software engineer, program manager, and technical evangelist. His contributions include writing CIFS/SMB code, CIFS-related RFCs, code and documentation for the Windows NT Installable File System Kit, as well as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and performance/management (including storage management) features for the Windows platform. Dilip has also represented Microsoft on a number of industry standards organizations.

This was first published in April 2005

Join the conversationComment

Share
Comments

    Results

    Contribute to the conversation

    All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.

    Disclaimer: Our Tips Exchange is a forum for you to share technical advice and expertise with your peers and to learn from other enterprise IT professionals. TechTarget provides the infrastructure to facilitate this sharing of information. However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or validity of the material submitted. You agree that your use of the Ask The Expert services and your reliance on any questions, answers, information or other materials received through this Web site is at your own risk.

    Back to top