What is the primary function of shadow copies?
From Web Application point of view a Shadow copies runs when the production server is going through an update. The Shadow Copy runs meanwhile the server gets updated. The users connecting to the server during the update are served by the application Shadow copy.The Following is what I extracted from Wikipedia.Shadow Copies or Snapshots have two primary purposes: they allow the creation of consistent backups of a volume, ensuring that the contents cannot change while the backup is being made; and they avoid problems with file locking.By creating a read-only copy of the volume, backup programs are able to access every file without interfering with other programs writing to those same files.