> Hello,

> Has anyone ever got system state recovery to restore the box to the exact
> configuration at the time of backup? With all applications running
> correctly?  I have not been able to do this and want to know if I am
> shooting at an attainable target.  
>

The general answer is that with good design you can go back to a point
in time, but that may or may not mean all applications can resume
correctly.  Backup normally skips open files, and (except for databases)
does not have any idea when application data is in a consistent state.
So restoring back to a point in time is not the same as rolling back
application state; uncommitted state may have been in memory or on the
network at the time of the backup.  With more than one application 
running there may be NO point in time when the entire filesystem
is consistent, at least from an application point of view.  Most 
backup products (and backup people) focus on filesystem integrity not 
application integrity.  This issue has only recently come into focus 
for me.  I know it's probably not the answer you wanted to hear!