Windows 2008 MWSB Backup - Different from SystemState

1. MS Windows System backup for Windows 2008 server

   Microsoft Windows 2008 backups are different from past Windows backups. With the MS Windows System backup module, you can backup all critical volumes, rather than only backing up system state data, this module backs up the selected volumes entirely. Detailed instruction for how to perform MS Windows System backup can be found in Chapter 15.
   
   When you backup the critical volumes on a domain controller with the MS Windows System backup module, the backup includes all data that resides on the volumes that include the following:
   
   

   • The volume that hosts the boot files, which consist of the Bootmgr file and the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store
   • The volume that hosts the Windows operating system and the registry
   • The volume that hosts the SYSVOL tree
   • The volume that hosts the Active Directory database (Ntds.dit)
   • The volume that hosts the Active Directory database log files
   
   Notes:
   A volume is considered critical if any system state file is reported on that particular volume.
   
   
   
2. MS Windows System State backup for Windows 2008 server -
   
   Unlike System State backup in previous version of Windows (e.g. 2000, XP, 2003, which can be performed with the OBM built-in System State backup module), System State backup in Windows 2008 is performed through a command line backup utility called WBAdmin.
   
   Instruction for how to perform system state backup on a Windows 2008 server can be found in the manual.
   
   When performing system state backup, the system components that are included in the system state data depend on the server roles that are installed on the computer. A system state backup includes at least the following data, plus additional data, depending on the server roles that are installed:
   
   
   • Registry
   • COM+ Class Registration database
   • Boot files
   • Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) database
   • Active Directory database (Ntds.dit)
   • SYSVOL directory
   • Cluster service information
   • Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) metadirectory
   • System files that are under Windows Resource Protection
   
   Due to the change from NTBackup to WBAdmin, the System State backup of a Windows 2008 server is considerably larger than the same backup on a Windows 2003 server, the average size is around 11GB.
   
   Furthermore, WBAdmin creates the dump files and folders with distinct names during each backup. For every backup job, the file/folder names of the dump are different and also the file/folder names have to be preserved as created by WBAdmin for the backup data to be restorable. Thus, please be reminded that no In-file Delta can be applied onto the System State data

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