Reviewing the prerequisites

Ensure that your system hardware and software meets the requirements and review the recommendations and best practices.

Set up SQL Server for use with Storage Foundation (SFW).

Ensure that you have disks with enough space to store the snapshot volumes. Each snapshot set requires the same amount of space as the original volumes.

Ensure that you are logged in as a domain administrator or as a member of the Domain Admins group.

If a firewall exists between the wizard and any systems it needs access to, set the firewall to allow both ingoing and outgoing TCP requests on port 7419.

In a clustered server environment, ensure that the scheduler service is configured with domain administrator privileges.

For SQL Server 2012 or later, ensure that the account is granted the sysadmin server role (from SQL Management Studio Console) on each node.

To use a previously created template, copy it to the server that you are configuring.

Ensure that the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider service is running. For a clustered server environment, ensure that the service is running on all systems in the cluster.

Although not required to run the wizard, the SQL Server VSS Writer service must be started for snapshot mirror preparation and scheduled snapshots to occur.