VSS Hardware Proivder for NAS 2000s

[CA1077337]

I have seen that HP has released VSS hardware providers for their StorageWorks Disk Arrays. Are there any plans to release VSS hardware providers for the NAS 2000s?

[Uwe Zessin]

What are you after? It is my understanding that a NAS box is a server that presents file shares. VSS is used by a server to signal a storage array to take a snapshot of a LUN. According to the QuickSpecs of the 2000s it it possible to run a VSS on this box so that it can signal to a storage array.

I don't know if a client of the NAS box can initiate a snapshot, if that is what you are looking for.

[CA1077337]

I'm looking for the VSS Hardware provider which will enable Shadow Copy Transport. I'd like to be able to snapshot a volume on my NAS 2000s and then transport that shadow copy to another host to be mounted as a filesystem there. I'm not sure if it's possible since all I've seen in documentation is that this is done on a SAN.

[Uwe Zessin]

Mark,
my knowledge is, too, that you need a SAN-based storage array and a provider for that array to use Shadow Copy Transport.

You know that you can get host-based snapshots for the NAS boxes, too? Of course you cannot present a block-based view of the data to another server, but you should be able to preset a file share of the snapshot to the clients.

You might also like to take a look at 'HP OpenView Storage Mirroring' which can be used to replicate directory trees between servers. Here is the URL:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/sm/index.html