How Mounting Works

When restoring Microsoft SQL Server data, Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server requires an additional mount point to be created to display SQL Server transactions.

Mounting is performed by the Veeam Mount Service component which is deployed on a backup repository machine or any other machine you define in the backup repository settings. For more information, see the Mount Servers section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

During mounting, Veeam Mount Service retrieves a VM file system from the backup file, attaches it to the hard drive of the target machine and creates a mount point.

To mount a VM file system on to machines with the Microsoft Windows operating system, Veeam uses the iSCSI protocol. The original virtual machine or staging Microsoft SQL Server acts as an iSCSI initiator, and a mount server associated with the backup repository acts as an iSCSI target. The iSCSI mount point is non-persistent and only exists during the recovery process.

Note

When using fine-tune restore or point-in-time state restore, Veeam always uses a staging Microsoft SQL Server to mount the VM file system.