Microsoft
This is not related to this post but could you guys do a posting or at least answer some serious questions about Exchange and VSS that I have ?
From what I have figured out about VSS, when you do a VSS based backup you are doing a block level backup which is (basically) like copying database files when the databse application is shut down. In this case Exchange can't do a checksum on the database pages. So the backup program has to do a checksum later.
So my questions are:
1) Does the backup program built into Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 know how to do the check after ?
2) If it does not does that mean that a streaming backup is being made ?
3) If a streaming backup is being made can the Exchange VSS writer be disabled or removed to remove a point of failure from the server ?
4) Is a streaming backup the "gold standard" for Exchange backup vs a VSS backup ?