10 Personal

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 Finally you can place a backup image to a network drive to stand a better chance of success in case

of a hard disk failure. Moreover, by storing it on a special-purpose server you may be pretty sure nothing

will happen to it.

PARAGON HOT PROCESSING & VOLUME SHADOW COPY SERVICE

OFFLINE VERSUS ONLINE DATA PROCESSING

In the course of time there have been developed various methods of data processing. Despite different work

concept, all of them can be divided into two principal groups: offline (cold) and online (hot) data processing

techniques.

As the name infers, offline data processing can only be accomplished when the data is in consistent state (the

operating system and all the applications are completely shut down). Actually it is the most preferable way of

image creation or data cloning, since software can obtain an exclusive right to process data that guaranties

high level of operating efficiency. However, the offline data processing is absolutely out of question when

dealing with 24/7 production environments.

In contrast, online data processing enables to create a consistent snapshot even as the data is currently

modified. It is particularly useful for systems with high availability requirements, but it won’t be accomplished

until all active transactions are complete. The point is to provide a coherent state of all open files and

databases involved in a process, taking into account that applications may still keep writing to disks. As a result

an online data processing cannot boast high operating speed.

Our program supports both offline and online methods of data processing. As far as online method is

concerned it offers its own hot processing algorithm together with the possibility to use snapshot technologies

provided by the Microsoft VSS framework.

PARAGON HOT PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

Paragon Hot Processing is an online copy/backup technology for Windows NT+ family operating systems.

Developed back in 2001, nowadays it is integrated with all copy/backup solutions offered by the company.

Paragon Hot Processing is not exactly a snapshot technology, though it has much in common with it. During an

online copy/backup, the program uses the kernel mode driver HOTCORE.SYS to intercept and control disk write

activity of applications and the operating system. The hotcore driver as an integral part of the program is

installed during the setup procedure (that’s why the system reboot is required to complete the setup

procedure). For the most part the driver is in the idle mode until it is activated with the program. While in this

mode it bypasses any calls having no effect on the overall system performance, but a few kilobytes of the

system memory.

Paragon Hot Processing technology offers copy/backup of locked partitions and hard disks under Windows

NT+ family operating systems providing both high operating efficiency as well as low hardware requirements.

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It is not recommended to use Paragon Hot Processing with active SQL Server,

Exchange or Oracle databases since the backup image contents may be corrupted.

VOLUME SHADOW COPY SERVICE