On the technet DPM team blog Prashant Kumar (Program Manager | DPM Team) wrote a post with a lot of interesting background information on DPM 2010.
He describes how some of the new features in DPM 2010 help you to meet you business SLA’s.
Post can be found here
Quote from http://blogs.technet.com
A potential problem with Volume Manager on Windows Server 2008 systems may lead to data loss.
This hot fix is not DPM-specific. However, because DPM servers do utilize dynamic disks, it is important to apply this hotfix on WS08-based DPM servers so that your backup-data is not lost from the DPM storage pool.
For more information please read the link below to the hot fix.
962975 Dynamic disks are marked as "Invalid" on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista when you bring the disks online, take the disks offline, or restart the computer if Data Protection Manager is installed
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962975
This hot fix does not apply to Windows Server 2008 R2
As you might have noticed there is no documentation on DPM 2010 included in the RC download.
Mike of Scug.be has done a good job in making screen-shots of the upgrade from DPM 2010 beta to DPM 2010 RC.
This might saves you from some headaches.
http://scug.be/blogs/scdpm/archive/2010/02/10/dpm-2010-upgrade-from-beta-to-rc.aspx
There are many reasons why a SharePoint recovery point keeps failing. It also a good idea to check the logs on the Web front-end and SQL backend server.
In our case we found the following errors in the system log of the SharePoint Web front-end 
| Event Type: Error |
| Event Type: Error |
Reason / Cause
In our case this error was caused by a Password change of the account we used (a long time ago) to configure SharePoint protection.
Solution
After you change the password of the account you used for the ConfigureSharePointProtection, you need to run the commands again on the SharePoint Web Front-end machines.
ConfigureSharePoint –EnableSharePointProtection
ConfigureSharePoint –EnableSPSearchProtection
All available commands: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd441708.aspx
When you try to add a SharePoint farm to a DPM protection group you may get the error below.
| The operation failed because an error occurred while enumerating the data source for Virtual SSP Writer. Check to see that the data source specified in the error message is online and accessible. ID: 921 Details: The system cannot find the path specified (0x8007003) |
You will receive this error when trying to expand the SharePoint Front-end server.
Resolution \ Cause:
The might be caused by a missing MTATempStore$ share on your SharePoint frontend server. Check if the directory %program files\Data Protection Manager\Temp is shared as MTATempStore$. The default permission is Everyone full control. This can be changed as long as the account you used for configuring the WssCmdletsWrapper has access to the Share.
Now you can retry to add the SharePoint farm to the Protection group
Storage is the most essential part of the hardware for Data protection Manager. In most cases you will use disk for your short term protection.
But how many disk space to you need?
To answer this question Microsoft has developed three Excel calculation sheets (still in draft) for: Exchange, SharePoint and Hyper-V
Example 1: Hyper-V Calculation
Example 2: Exchange Protection
Example 3: SharePoint protection
As you can see in the examples above, the sheets calculate more then only the required disk space. It also calculate the number of DPM servers required, hardware for DPM server needed. Configuration of the DPM server; like page file and Database size. You will also find an estimated backup and recovery time for your protected servers.
The sheets are available at the Microsoft download site: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c136c66c-bd4a-4fb1-8088-f610cd02dc51
The RC version of DPM 2010 is now available for download – Lets get started
The system state back-up fails on a Windows 2008 server with SQL 2005 installed.
The error message on the DPM server is a bit confusing
| DPM failed to create the system state backup. If you are trying to create the system state of a Windows 2008 Server operating system, verify that the Windows Server Backup (WSB) is installed, and that there is enough free disk space on the protected server to store the system state. (ID 30214 Details: Internal error code: 0x809909FB) |
There is enough free space available and the system state back-up worked before, this confirms that the Windows Server backup application is successful installed.
The first steps of troubleshooting are: kicking off the system state back-up locally on the protected server and checking the event log
Stating the system state backup locally should be done from the command line interface:
wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backuptarget:x
(x – should be replaced with the drive letter where you like to store the system state backup)
In our case this local back-up fails as well. Surprising is that; we did not select the SQL database to be included in the back-up but the application log is still full with SQL backup errors.
An overview of errors
| Log Name: Application |
| Log Name: Application |
| Log Name: Application Error state: 1, Severity: 16 |
| Log Name: Application Description: BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE <DATABASENAME>. Check the backup application log for detailed messages. |
| Log Name: Application Description:Backup started at '5-2-2010 9:52:41' failed as Volume Shadow copy operation failed for backup volumes with following error code '2155348129'. Please rerun backup once issue is resolved. |
The errors in the application log indicate that there is an issue with the SQL databases which causes the SQL VSS-writer to fail during the system state back-up.
This can be confirmed by stopping the SQL services and try the system state backup again. Now the back-up is successful.
One of the SQL database is causing the SQL VSS-writer to fail. Application error 4 shows which database is causing the issue.
In our case we contacted the SQL application error, who did his magic. (I do not have the details).
After this the System state back-up is successful
When using Hyper-V (R2) as your virtualization solution it is likely that you will use DPM 2010 as your backup solution. When using DPM 2010 to protect the Hyper-V parent\host it is able to create consistent backups of application\database which are running inside the child machines. I will explain how this works in one of my next posts.
But which solution should you use for Vmware image backups and what are the pitfalls.
My colleague Marcel van den Berg (UP2V ) writes about it on his blog post: Is your VMware snapshot application consistent ??
Maybe a bit off-topic here. But it never hurts to broaden your horizon
Also from his hand: Overview of image level backup solutions for VMware vSphere
Microsoft System Center helps you get the most from your mission-critical messaging infrastructure with management solutions that enhance the availability features built into Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. In this webcast, we look at how System Center can improve the health and availability of your servers running Exchange with the Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2007 and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. System Center has application awareness built into its management solutions to help deliver guidance and best practices to Exchange administrators, ensuring service level agreements (SLAs) are met and saving organizations money.
Presenters: Leslie Kitz, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation and Jon LeCroy, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
Start Time:
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Language(s):
English.
Product(s):
Microsoft System Center.
Audience(s):
IT Generalist.
Duration:
60 Minutes
Thanks to Marnix: http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/
