The Volume Shadow Copy Service is effectively a backup and restore service. It was introduced way back when in Windows Server 2003. Shadow copy is another term for Snapshot or Point-in-time copy, or Point-in-time Snapshot. There is a bunch of terms used in the context of the VSS. These include:
- The VSS Service - part of the Windows operating system that enables all parties in the shadow copy workflow to communicate.
- The VSS Requestor - actually requests the creation of the shadow copy (or operations thereon e.g. importing or deleting shadow copies).
