Hi,
A Writer is specific code within an application that participates in the Volume Shadow Copy Service framework to provide point-in-time, recovery-consistent operating system and application data. Writers appear as Shadow Copy Components, which are listed as
resources in backup and restore selections in Backup Exec.
The Backup Exec Shadow Copy Components file system supports the Microsoft SQL Server Writer, which protects SQL Server and MSDE data. You must enter a Backup Exec
SQL Agent serial number to display the Writer. Then, both the SQL Agent and the Writer are available to perform data protection operations of SQL Server on Windows Server
2003 resources in Backup Exec.
Although both the SQL Agent and the SQL Server Writer can protect SQL Server on Windows 2003 resources, the SQL Agent provides more features than the SQL Server
Writer. For example, the SQL Agent provides online, nondisruptive backups of the SQL databases, unlike the SQL Server Writer. Additionally, the SQL Agent supports a variety of backup methods. The SQL Server Writer supports full backups only.
We hope this helps.