3.1.1.1 Abstract Data Model

This section describes a conceptual model of possible data organization that an implementation maintains to participate in this protocol. The described organization is provided to facilitate the explanation of how the protocol behaves. This document does not mandate that implementations adhere to this model as long as their external behavior is consistent with that described in this document.

A server that implements the Shadow Copy Management Protocol maintains the persistent configuration of shadow copies and shadow copy storage associations. The server also provides interfaces to enumerate shadow copies and volumes that can be shadow copied or used as shadow copy storage volumes.

Volumes supporting shadow copies: The server provides the mechanism to enumerate the volumes on the server that support shadow copies. Each volume on the server that can support shadow copies is represented in this protocol by a VSS_VOLUME_PROP structure.

Shadow copies: The server maintains a list of shadow copies for each volume that can support shadow copies. The protocol enforces no restriction on the number of shadow copies that can exist for a particular volume. The server provides the mechanism to enumerate existing shadow copies on a specific volume on the server and exposes that enumeration through the IVssEnumObject interface. Each shadow copy that is returned by the IVssEnumObject interface is represented as a VSS_SNAPSHOT_PROP structure.