BE 2010 AOFO questions

[rpcblast]

I am little fuzzy on the necessity of AOFO.  My understanding is that the aofo option is needed to backup any file thats in use(if not using another agent such as exchange/sql).  I did a test job to backup an access database that was open, and the job did not have use AOFO selected, yet the backup appears to have run successfully.  I understand that Starting with windows 2003, the symantec driver is no longer needed, but how can it backup open files if aofo isnt checked in the job?

[AmolB]

For Windows 2003 and above VSS does the job of AOFO. So if you don't select AOFO backup exec

will make use of Microsoft VSS to backup open files.

Note: Do not use AOFO for DB backups like exchange or SQL

Refer to https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/advanced-open-file-option

[RahulG]

By default when you run backup of system state or shdowcopy component it uses VSS irrespective if AOFO is checked or unchecked. So if you run the backup of the local volumes on the server it would skip the file if the AOFO option is not checked but it would use the AOFO option when it backups the system state or shadowcopy component .

[pkh · Accepted solution]

Historically, AOFO started in the days of Windows 2000 Servers which does not have VSS.  To handle opened file, Veritas developed VSP.  From Server 2003 onwards, Microsoft provides VSS to handle opened files so VSP is no longer needed.  However, you still need to turn on AOFO if you need to backup opened files regardless of the OS.  AOFO will then call the approrpriate technology (by default) to handle opened file.  In the case of Server 2003 and above, AOFO will invoke VSS.  If you don't enable AOFO, then BE will not invoke anything and will skip any opened file.

You should not use AOFO with any backups of databases, so have separate jobs for your flat files and databases.