IBM Support

Unique Virtual Device Interface for the Data Protection for SQL

Question & Answer


Question

If there are multiple SQL Server instances on the same machine and both of these SQL Servers use the Data Protection for SQL to simultaneously perform a backup, will the Virtual Device Interface (VDI) device name for each instance be unique?

Cause

The Virtual Device Interface feature of Microsoft SQL Server needs to use a unique name.
See Microsoft document: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903646

Answer

Data Protection for SQL creates a VDI device name that is guaranteed to be unique as it is based on the process ID.

The virtual device name has the following format: "TDPSQL-xxxx-nnnn"
Where: xxxx - Is the process identifier of the Data Protection SQL execution in hexadecimal format.
nnnn - Is the virtual device number in hexadecimal format.
For example:
Database backed up. Database: dpsqlSimpleDB1, creation date(time): 2009/04/10(13:25:31), pages dumped: 267, first LSN: 83:65:37, last LSN: 83:81:1, number of dump devices: 1, device information: (FILE=1, TYPE=VIRTUAL_DEVICE: {'TDPSQL-00001358-0000'})....

Thus, there is no concern for multiple SQL instances running a backup on the same machine at the same time as each Data Protection for SQL execution would be a unique process and thus generate a unique VDI device name.

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Product Synonym

TSM

Document Information

More support for:
Tivoli Storage Manager for Databases

Software version:
All Versions

Operating system(s):
Windows

Document number:
387711

Modified date:
17 June 2018

UID

swg21385433