HP SAN Virtualization Services Platform - Manual (Page 61)

To do so, a VSS requestor needs to initiate the request for the PiT and snapshot from a specific
server. Microsoft has developed a requestor called VSHADOW, which is a command line utility that
can be downloaded from the VSS SDK on the MSDN website. The following sections describe
how to use the VSHADOW as a requestor to create a PiT and snapshot within batch script files.
Using Microsoft VSS to create a PiT and snapshot
Create a Windows batch file that contains the command that does the following:
1. Creates the PiT and the snapshot.
2. Assigns the snapshot back to the host from which this batch file is running.
For example, to take a snapshot of disk F: and assign it back to the same server with read-only
permissions, enter this command:
vshadow -p -script=c:\scripts\vss\env.cmd F:
In this example, the batch file includes the VSHADOW command to create the snapshot from
the F: disk.
3. Run VSHADOW again to mount the snapshot to the host.
call script=c:\scripts\vss\env.cmd
vshadow - el=%SHADOW_ID_1%,c:\mnt\2008Jul22152910\device_1
The VSHADOW pickups the value of the =%SHADOW_ID_1% from the env.cmd file created by
the first run of the VSHADOW command, and then mounts it to a mount point, which in this
example is c:\mnt\2008Jul22152910\device_1.
Using Microsoft VSS to create a user PiT for asynchronous mirrors
Create a Windows batch file that contains a command that creates the user PiT without a snapshot.
For example, to take a user PiT of disk F: , enter this command:
vshadow -script=c:\scripts\vss\env.cmd F:
In this example, the batch file includes the VSHADOW command to create the user PiT from the F:
disk.
The command runs without the -p operator, which causes the snapshot and its PiT to be deleted
at the end of the operation, except when the virtual disk is marked as an asynchronous mirror
source. In this case, only the snapshot is deleted.
Using the Microsoft VSS to create a persistent PiT and snapshot 61