Configuring Quiesced snapshots with Alike

Alike has always supported using XenServer's Quiesced snapshots, when they were available.  Versions of Alike prior to 1.37 have automated this decision, checking if the guest supports quiesced snapshots, and using them first if they are available.  If not, or if the quiesced snapshot fails (which they can do occasionally when the VM is under heavy load), Alike would revert to using 'standard' snapshots, which are more or less supported everywhere.

In version1.37 of Alike, the use of quiesced snapshots is now a user defined option, selected per backup job.  This was done based on user requests to be able to more flexibly configure their backup environment.  The same fallback behavior still exists in v1.37; if a quiesced snapshot fails, it will attempt to take a 'standard' snapshot before failing altogether.  But if the administrator chooses to not use quiescence, Alike will always trigger a standard snapshot, even if the VM can support quiescence.

Please refer to the following article for preparing your VMs to support quiesced snapshots:
http://www.quorumsoft.com/kb/index.php/article/enabling-xenservers-quiesced-snapshots

Please Note:
There is a bug in the current version of Windows 2008 R2 XenTool VSS providers that can cause a VM backed up from a quiesced snapshot to be unable to boot.  Until this problem is resolved by Citrix, we advise all of our customers running Windows 2008 R2 to disable Quiesced snapshots with Alike.


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