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Systems & Data Center · Intermediate

Application-Consistent Backup

A backup taken after the application flushes buffers and pauses writes so data is in a recoverable, transactionally consistent state.

Definition

Crash-consistent backups resemble a sudden power loss, whereas application-consistent backups coordinate with applications through VSS on Windows or pre/post scripts on Linux. Databases such as SQL Server and Exchange benefit most.

Example

VMware Tools invokes VSS to quiesce SQL Server before the backup snapshot.

Exam tip

Crash-consistent may require database recovery on restore; application-consistent should not.

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