The Lenovo Storage V7000 provides
support for the Microsoft Volume
Shadow Copy Service and Virtual Disk Service. The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy
Service can provide a point-in-time (shadow) copy of a Windows host volume while the volume is mounted
and files are in use. The Microsoft Virtual
Disk Service provides a single vendor and technology-neutral interface
for managing block storage virtualization, whether done by operating
system software, RAID storage hardware, or other storage virtualization
engines.
The following components
are used to provide support for the service:
- Lenovo Storage V7000
- The cluster CIM server
- IBM® System
Storage® hardware
provider,
known as the IBM System Storage Support for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy
Service and Virtual Disk Service software
- Microsoft Volume Shadow
Copy Service
- The vSphere Web Services when
it is in a VMware
virtual platform
The
IBM System
Storage hardware
provider is
installed on the Windows host.
To provide the point-in-time shadow copy, the components complete
the following process:
- A backup application on the Windows host
initiates a snapshot backup.
- The Volume Shadow Copy Service
notifies the IBM System
Storage hardware
provider that
a copy is needed.
- The Lenovo Storage V7000 prepares
the volumes for a snapshot.
- The Volume Shadow Copy Service
quiesces the software applications
that are writing data on the host and flushes file system buffers
to prepare for the copy.
- The Lenovo Storage V7000 creates
the shadow copy using the FlashCopy Copy
Service.
- The Volume Shadow Copy Service notifies the writing
applications
that I/O operations can resume, and notifies the backup application
that the backup was successful.
The Volume Shadow Copy
Service maintains a free pool of volumes for
use as a FlashCopy target
and a reserved pool of volumes.
These pools are implemented as
virtual host systems on the Lenovo Storage V7000.