With Windows 2003, Microsoft delivered the Volume Shadow Copy Service, essentially, Microsoft's take on snapshot technology allowing fast backup and restores. I remember everyone at the office excited about this, only it didn't worked quite as we hoped for, initially. Also, it didn't support Exchange. Now, following Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003 service packs, VSS for Exchange is now supported.
As always, since this feature relies on third party products, you need to make sure that they work well with VSS before implementing them in your production environment.
To assist you with this, Microsoft released a through document explaining VSS methodology helping you with choosing, testing, deploying, and monitoring a VSS solution for Exchange Server 2003.
The guide can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/vssbp.mspx
About Amit Zinman
Currently working as Project Manager and Systems Consultant, heading and consulting on Exchange and NT/Windows 2000 based migrations and deployments for large companies such as Checkpoint, Comverse, Smarteam, Nice, Aladdin and leading Israeli Banks, Also involved in writing scripts and custom solutions for clients based on ADSI, CDO and Visual Basic and teaching Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 in MSCE colleges and lecturing in Microsoft User Groups.
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