How it Works:
File Access Manager as your Open File Solution
If you are trying to backup your business’ mission critical data without an open solution, your backups are vulnerable to being incomplete due to open file error. FAM gives your backup software the ability to protect all files with seamless, automatic caching throughout your entire network.
Unlike VSS, FAM does not have any limitations (see FAM vs VSS) and works with all business applications and backup software by allowing the end user to dynamically add ANY backup software to FAM’s “Allowed Program List”. Once added to the list, the specified backup software will have access to all open, locked and in-use files and never again will users have to log out or close down a program at backup time.
How it works with a single computer that has FAM installed locally:
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FAM monitors the file system for any read requests that will come from backup applications in its allowed list. Once FAM detects a backup to a locked or exclusively opened file, FAM will allow access to the file. The application that has the file locked continues to store the information directly to disk as usual.
Once the backup of the locked file has begun, FAM will automatically cache old overwritten data to a temporary location.
At this point the backup software and the application see the file differently. The application that has the file locked, see’s all changes that it makes to the file as it would without FAM installed. On the other hand, the backup software see’s the file as it originally would when the backup first began, without any of the new changes.
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How it works in a networked environment:
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FAM was designed to work in a heterogeneous computing environment, by offering support for both Windows file systems (NTFS, FAT32) and network file systems.
FAM supports a networked computing environment by allowing access to open, locked and in-use files over mapped drives and networked computers.
Installing FAM on computer A and on computer B, would allow computer A to backup exclusive, in-use and locked files residing on computer B.
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How it works with keeping files in sync:
FAM also allows for the synchronization of multiple files at once while ensuring relational integrity. For example, a database backup would include a snapshot of both the database’s logs and data files as they were at an instance of time.
This functionality must be used by the application that is using FAM.
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