VSS instant restore processing

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In an instant restore operation, a volume-level snapshot of a local Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) backup is restored. The VSS backup must exist on SAN-attached volumes.

A Microsoft VSS instant restore operation restores data by using a hardware-assisted restore method.

Data must be restored on a storage system that runs VSS software and can process VSS instant restore operations. Instant restore processing requires a VSS hardware provider to restore data at the volume level.

Typically, you can restore local VSS backups of SAN-attached volumes from the following storage systems:
  • IBM® System Storage® DS8000® series
  • IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller
  • IBM Storwize®
  • IBM XIV® Storage Systems

In Microsoft Windows Server 2012 or later, you can run instant restore operations on IBM and non-IBM storage devices that are enabled to work with a transportable snapshot. A transportable snapshot is a cloned image of an Exchange or SQL server database backup that is stored in a SAN cloud, and can be moved from one system to another.

For instant restore operations, use the devices that are listed here: Storage Architecture Support for Tivoli® Storage FlashCopy® Manager and IBM Storage Protect Snapshot .

If data is not on an XIV, SAN Volume Controller, or Storwize family systems with space-efficient target volumes, you must ensure that background copies that use the volumes are restored.

You can manually disable VSS instant restore processing so that IBM Storage Protect Snapshot uses VSS fast restore processing. Instant restore processing is automatically disabled for these VSS restore operations:
  • Restore data to an alternate location
  • Restore data to an Exchange Server recovery database
  • Restore files by issuing the restorefiles command
Restriction: With VSS instant restore processing, SQL Server VSS backups can be restored only to the same SQL Server instance from which they are backed up.

Even though Exchange Server data is restored relatively quickly, the transaction logs must be replayed after a restore operation. The time of recovery for the Exchange Server database increases as the number of logs to be replayed increases.