Protect Your System State

System State Protection allows you to include critical system-related components in your replication and high availability scenarios, so that you can recover these components after a failure. System State Protection is server-type independent, which means you can enable this feature in any Arcserve RHA scenario. When System State Protection is enabled, information about the snapshot schedule and file management is stored directly in the scenario configuration file. Snapshot files are then transferred to all Replica servers configured under the Master, including any "child" Replicas, if its Retain System Snapshot property (Transferring Path) is enabled.

Note: Even if a child Replica's Retain System Snapshot property is enabled, a child Replica will not receive system state snapshots if this property on its parent is disabled.

System State Protection lets you:

Configure System State Protection in the Scenario Creation Wizard
Set periodic backup intervals
Send the snapshot file to more than one replica
Restore from a System State snapshot

The following components are always included when System State Protection is enabled:

boot files
COM+ Class Registration database
Registry service

The following components are also included in System State Protection depending upon the operating system:

Windows Server 2003 Operating Systems
- All files protected by WFP
- performance counter configurations
- Active Directory (ADSI) on systems that are domain controllers
- SYSVOL directory replicated by File Replication Service (FRS) on systems that are domain controllers
- Certificate server on systems that provide Certificate Authority
- Cluster database on systems that are a node of a Windows cluster

Windows Server 2008 Operating Systems
- Certificate Services database
- Active Directory Domain Services (NTDS)
- SYSVOL directory (FRS Writer)
- Cluster Service information
- Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) meta-directory (IIS Metabase Writer/IIS Configuration Writer)
- System files under WFP (System Writer)

Note: For Windows Server 2003 and higher, system state snapshots are taken using System Writer. Refer to the Microsoft website for more information on Backing Up and Restoring System State Under VSS.