Plugin components now available for Exchange, Oracle, SQL, etc.

Divinsa LLC’s WholesaleBackup software client, since its first version, has utilized the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) framework for backing up open files in what Microsoft terms as a “crash consistent state” (i.e. backups of all open files will be at a specific moment in time consistent with what has been written to disk at that time as if the computer crashed at that point).

The WholesaleBackup client software now supports, in experimental mode, the VSS Component API for backing up, in a safe integral state, collections of files and folders associated with some application Components, such as Microsoft Exchange and Oracle.

The implementation of every VSS Component Writer was done by the application vendor itself (for example Microsoft SQL, Oracle, VMware, etc.), thus the actual file backup process provided by a VSS Component is implemented by the actual author of the associated application.  Backup utilities that support Microsoft’s VSS interface are called Readers and are abstracted from details which the application vendor’s specific backup procedure requires, thus allowing a well-written Reader to backup dozens of different applications using a single method.

The WholesaleBackup software client is now a VSS Reader that makes standardized calls to the VSS API, and thus WholesaleBackup can now backup any application, including some operating system functions supported by Microsoft, which have implemented a VSS Writer for their files.  WholesaleBackup’s VSS Reader backs up files in “full copy” mode by default, or optionally “full mode”, and then WholesaleBackup will either use full or differential methods to transmit those files to the backup servers using the method you have specified within WholesaleBackup (the default is differential, a.k.a. delta block, to minimize the client’s Internet bandwidth).