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Troubleshooting the VSS Hardware Provider

If you attempt to create a backup on a storage system running Data ONTAP, and a Snapshot copy is not created on the storage system, you can troubleshoot the VSS Hardware Provider in several ways.

About this task

There can be many providers installed on the same Windows host, including the VSS software provider, which is always installed. The provider used is determined by either the Requestor or VSS, not the provider. If the first choice provider is not available, an alternative can be silently substituted.

To make a Snapshot copy on the storage system, the Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider must be used. If a Snapshot copy on the storage system is not created successfully, verify that the Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider was used to create the Snapshot copy.

Only the Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider can take a Snapshot copy on a storage system. When you use a VSS requestor, such as SnapManager for Microsoft Exchange or NTBackup, to back up a LUN backed by a storage system running Data ONTAP, the Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider must be used for the Snapshot copy to succeed.

Steps

  1. View the installed providers and verify that the Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider is installed.
  2. Verify that the Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider was used to create the Snapshot copy and that it was completed successfully.
  3. Verify your VSS configuration.