How should the architect implement database protection in Access?

While making copies is a form of backup, it may not guarantee a consistent state if the Access database is actively being used, potentially leading to data corruption in the backup.

Hosting an .MDB file on a network share is primarily about file accessibility and does not inherently provide backup, recovery, or consistency features for database protection.

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provides a mechanism to create consistent backups of open files, including live Microsoft Access database files, by creating a point-in-time snapshot of the volume. This ensures data integrity and prevents corruption when backing up the database.

Taking hypervisor snapshots of the VM might result in a crash-consistent backup of the database, but without VSS integration within the guest OS, it does not guarantee an application-consistent snapshot, which is crucial for database integrity.