System Center Data Protection Manager

Replica inconsistent and insufficient disk space on BMR (Bare Metal Recovery) Backup

2012-02-01T16:25:00.001+01:00

The problem is that sometimes the BMR backup "Bare Metal Recovery" is not working properly and fails with the message "Replica inconsistent" caused by "insufficient disk space".
Cause:
DPM 2010 does not calculate the size of BMR data source, but assumes 30 GB for all servers. Admins should change the value as per the size of BMR backups expected on their environments.

Windows Anti-Virus Exclusion List

2012-01-23T16:20:00.000+01:00

One place on the web where you can find an updated list of ALL the AV exclusions you might want to configure for Windows Server.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/953.aspx

DPM 2012 Release Candidate available

2012-01-20T15:52:00.001+01:00

This week Microsoft released the RC version of DPM2012. The RC was released as part of the Private Cloud Management Suit. This is Microsoft next step in offering a ‘all-in-one’ cloud solution, based on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 8 and System Center.

During this web cast Microsoft launched their Private Cloud Management Suit. In this session you will see how all System Center products come to getter in one suit that allows to manage your private cloud.

The Private Cloud Management Suit includes:

System Center 2012 App Controller	Provides a common self-service experience across private and public clouds that can help you empower application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage new services.
System Center 2012 Configuration Manager	Provides comprehensive configuration management for the Microsoft platform that can help you empower users with the devices and applications they need to be productive while maintaining corporate compliance and control
System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager	provides unified data protection for Windows servers and clients that can help you deliver scalable, manageable, and cost-effective protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape, and off premise
System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection	Built on System Center Configuration Manager, provides industry-leading threat detection of malware and exploits as part of a unified infrastructure for managing client security and compliance that can help you simplify and improve endpoint protection
System Center 2012 Operations Manager	Provides deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring that can help you ensure the predictable performance and availability of vital applications and offers a comprehensive view of your datacenter, private, and public clouds.
System Center 2012 Orchestrator	Provides orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of run books that can help you to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency.
System Center 2012 Service Manager	Provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes that can help you integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications.
System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager	Provides virtual machine management and services deployment with support for multi-hypervisor environments that can help you deliver a flexible and cost effective private cloud environment.

System Center 2012 Unified Installer
Starting this release Microsoft introduced one installer for all System Center (Cloud) management products the System Center 2012 Unified Installer. With the Unified Installer it's possible to install all System Center products as once, without the need to install a single product multiple times. That way products can be installed quicker and less screens are needed to install them.

You run the Unified Installer to deploy System Center 2012 components. After you select a System Center 2012 component to install, the Unified Installer prompts you for the prerequisites that the component requires. Then, the Unified Installer installs the component and its prerequisites.

Licensing
The licensing for the new System Center 2012 product suite will be fully renewed. The current System Center 2010 suite contains 110 licensing items. Where the new SC 2012 will only have 2 license types. , That is for the whole suite of SC products!

License required only for endpoints being managed. No additional licenses are needed for management servers or SQL Server technology.

Consistent licensing model across editions. Processor-based license, covering up to two
processors for server management. User- or OSE-license for client management.

All server management licenses (SMLs) include the same components and the ability to manage any workload. System Center 2012 SMLs will be released in two editions differentiated by virtualization rights only:

Datacenter: Maximizes cloud capacity with unlimited virtualization for high density private clouds

Standard: For lightly or non-virtualized private cloud workloads.

Full details: Licensing & Pricing Datasheet

Download
The release candidate versions of all the Microsoft System center products are now available for download. Start here.

More to read

Download the Microsoft Private Cloud Whitepaper

The Microsoft Private Cloud web site

Using the System Center 2012 Unified Installer

System Center 2012 Gets Generous Licensing Changes

Licensing & Pricing Datasheet

More to watch

Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud

Video: Thought Leadership Series – Enabling Private Cloud

Articles on disaster recovery (as a Service)

2012-01-16T15:26:00.000+01:00

My Conclusion FIT colleague Marcel van den Berg has created a posting to collect links to articles on disaster recovery and disaster recovery as a service.

How does DPM choose which tape to use First.

2012-01-13T14:34:00.001+01:00

DPM will use free tapes before it uses expired tapes. The thinking is that once you overwrite an expired tape, it can no longer be used for recovery, so DPM favors using free tapes first. DPM always pull tapes from the highest slot number first, so a free tape in slot 8 will be used before a free tape in slot 2.
(DPM forum by Mike J)

How to Troubleshoot Tape Library Sharing Configuration Issues in DPM 2010

2012-01-06T15:21:00.000+01:00

A TechNet post about everything you need to consider when sharing a tape library in DPM.

Read more

DPM console crashes on Recovery Tap

2011-12-05T13:31:00.000+01:00

One of our customers ran in to the problem that the DPM Console Kept on crashing when selecting the recovery Tab in the DPM console.

Error data

Description:AppName: mmc AppVer: xxxxx ModName: mmc.exe
ModVer: 6.1.7600.16385 StackHash: F36A6DFE
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: DPMException
Application Name: mmc
Application Version: xxxxxxxx
Module Name: mmc.exe
Module Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Exception Name: System.ArgumentException
Exception Point: System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException
Other: F36A6DFE
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.272.7
Locale ID: 1033

Check for duplicate servers in database
The error could be caused by duplicated names of Protected servers in Your DPM database.

Best way to check this is by running a query against the DPMDB.

The query: Select ServerName, Domainname from dbo.tbl_AM_Server
returns an overview of all protected servers in the database. It could be that servers are duplicate in the database with their NETBIOS and their FQDN.
If there are any duplicates you should stop protection for these servers and re-add them to DPM. This should resolve the issue with the crashing DPM console

DPM log error and event log error below

<FatalServiceError><__System><ID>19</ID><Seq>0</Seq><TimeCreated>11/28/2011 11:51:40 AM</TimeCreated><Source>DpmThreadPool.cs</Source><Line>163</Line><HasError>True</HasError></__System><ExceptionType>ArgumentException</ExceptionType><ExceptionMessage>An entry with the same key already exists.</ExceptionMessage><ExceptionDetails>System.ArgumentException: An entry with the same key already exists.

at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)

at System.Collections.Generic.TreeSet`1.Add(T item)

at System.Collections.Generic.SortedDictionary`2.Add(TKey key, TValue value)

at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.RecoveryPage.RecoveryBrowseTab.UpdateProductionServers(ICollection`1 productionServerList, TreeNode dataOnDiskAndTapeNode)

at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.RecoveryPage.RecoveryBrowseTab.RenderTreeView(Boolean firstTime)

at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.RecoveryPage.RecoveryBrowseTab.RenderView()

at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.CommonControls.FireOnceTimer.OnTimerTick(Object sender, EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.TimerNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)</ExceptionDetails></FatalServiceError>

The Event viewer shows the following error

The following information was included with the event:
An unexpected error caused a failure for process 'mmc'. Restart the DPM process 'mmc'.
Problem Details:
<FatalServiceError>
<__System><ID>19</ID><Seq>0</Seq><TimeCreated>11/28/2011 11:51:40 AM</TimeCreated><Source>DpmThreadPool.cs</Source><Line>163</Line><HasError>True</HasError></__System><ExceptionType>ArgumentException</ExceptionType><ExceptionMessage>An entry with the same key already exists.</ExceptionMessage><ExceptionDetails>System.ArgumentException: An entry with the same key already exists.
at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)
at System.Collections.Generic.TreeSet`1.Add(T item)
at System.Collections.Generic.SortedDictionary`2.Add(TKey key, TValue value)
at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.RecoveryPage.RecoveryBrowseTab.UpdateProductionServers(ICollection`1 productionServerList, TreeNode dataOnDiskAndTapeNode)
at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.RecoveryPage.RecoveryBrowseTab.RenderTreeView(Boolean firstTime)
at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.RecoveryPage.RecoveryBrowseTab.RenderView()
at Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.CommonControls.FireOnceTimer.OnTimerTick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.TimerNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)</ExceptionDetails></FatalServiceError>

Volsnap Bluescreen on DPM Server

2011-12-02T12:57:00.001+01:00

You might run in to the situation that you DPM 2010 server has a BSOD now and then. If this case you should check the stop error that is returned.

Check if the following Stop errors is returned when you create a snapshot of a volume:

STOP: 0x0000007E (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)
SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
Stop 0x00000050 (parameter1 , parameter2 , parameter3 , parameter4 )
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

You may experience this issue after you enable shadow copy functionality on a volume that is configured with a secondary Data Protection Manager (DPM) server for backup.

Hot Fix available
Microsoft has released a Hotfix for this issue. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460912/en-us

This applies to

Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Bugcheck Analysis

* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************
BAD_POOL_HEADER (19)
The pool is already corrupt at the time of the current request.
This may or may not be due to the caller.
The internal pool links must be walked to figure out a possible cause of
the problem, and then special pool applied to the suspect tags or the driver
verifier to a suspect driver.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000021, the data following the pool block being freed is corrupt. Typically this means the consumer (call stack ) has overrun the block.
Arg2: fffffa801c625000, The pool pointer being freed.
Arg3: 000000000000d290, The number of bytes allocated for the pool block.
Arg4: 0000000000000000, The corrupted value found following the pool block.
Debugging Details:
------------------
BUGCHECK_STR: 0x19_21
POOL_ADDRESS: GetPointerFromAddress: unable to read from fffff80002d0d100
fffffa801c625000
CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT_SERVER_MINIDUMP
PROCESS_NAME: System
CURRENT_IRQL: 0
LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from fffff80002c089b2 to fffff80002adac40
STACK_TEXT:
fffff880`02971088 fffff800`02c089b2 : 00000000`00000019 00000000`00000021 fffffa80`1c625000 00000000`0000d290 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff880`02971090 fffff880`01aaedfd : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 ffffffff`6d536f56 fffffa80`00000000 : nt!ExDeferredFreePool+0xfaa
fffff880`02971140 fffff880`01ac7117 : 00000000`0000000d 00000000`00000000 00000000`0005fa60 00000000`019fe600 : volsnap!VspFreeBitMap+0x3d
fffff880`02971170 fffff880`01ac7cd6 : fffffa80`1b609370 fffffa80`17dc8060 fffffa80`1b609370 00000000`00000000 : volsnap!VspMarkFreeSpaceInBitmap+0x1e7
fffff880`02971360 fffff880`01ac9e11 : fffffa80`17f26180 ffffffff`800089d4 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : volsnap!VspOptimizeDiffAreaFileLocation+0x2a6
fffff880`029716e0 fffff880`01ad968d : 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`2e175401 fffff880`029718b0 00000000`00004001 : volsnap!VspOpenDiffAreaFile+0x481
fffff880`02971860 fffff880`01ae05e7 : fffff880`02971bc0 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000651 : volsnap!VspCreateInitialDiffAreaFile+0x1ed
fffff880`029718b0 fffff880`01ae15d6 : fffffa80`17e5e180 fffff800`00000000 fffffa80`17e5e180 fffffa80`17e5e180 : volsnap!VspTryPrepareForSnapshot+0x737
fffff880`02971b90 fffff880`01abf0fc : 00000000`00000001 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`2eb743f0 fffffa80`1cd0cc00 : volsnap!VspPrepareForSnapshot+0x116
fffff880`02971c50 fffff800`02dd19e3 : fffffa80`17e5e030 fffff800`02c7b2b8 fffffa80`12e04b60 fffffa80`12e04b60 : volsnap!VspPostWorker+0x2c
fffff880`02971c80 fffff800`02ae5001 : fffff800`02c7b200 fffff800`02dd1901 fffffa80`12e04b00 fffff800`02c7b2b8 : nt!IopProcessWorkItem+0x23
fffff880`02971cb0 fffff800`02d75fee : 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`12e04b60 00000000`00000080 fffffa80`12d84b30 : nt!ExpWorkerThread+0x111
fffff880`02971d40 fffff800`02acc5e6 : fffff880`022a4180 fffffa80`12e04b60 fffff880`022af2c0 00000000`00000000 : nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x5a
fffff880`02971d80 00000000`00000000 : fffff880`02972000 fffff880`0296c000 fffff880`0296f940 00000000`00000000 : nt!KxStartSystemThread+0x16
STACK_COMMAND: kb
FOLLOWUP_IP:
volsnap!VspFreeBitMap+3d
fffff880`01aaedfd 4c8b5b08 mov r11,qword ptr [rbx+8]
SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 2
SYMBOL_NAME: volsnap!VspFreeBitMap+3d
FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner
MODULE_NAME: volsnap
IMAGE_NAME: volsnap.sys
DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 4ce792c8
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0x19_21_volsnap!VspFreeBitMap+3d
BUCKET_ID: X64_0x19_21_volsnap!VspFreeBitMap+3d
Followup: MachineOwner
---------

DPM agent versions

2011-11-30T14:31:00.000+01:00

DPM 2010

DPM 2010 3.0.7696.0
DPM 2010 role-up 1 (KB2250444) 3.0.7706.00
DPM 2010 role-up 2 (KB2465832) 3.0.7707.0

DPM 2007

DPM 2007 SP0 - 2.0.5820.0
DPM 2007 SP1 - 2.0.8793.0
DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB 968579) 2.0.8836.0
DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB970867) 2.0.8840.0
DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB970867 Revision: 1.0) 2.0.8851.0
DPM 2007 SP1 (with KB979970 ) 2.0.8864

DPM/SQL Performance

2011-11-22T16:11:00.001+01:00

DPM is largely depending on its SQL database. All settings, jobs and recovery information is hold in the DPM database.
When the DPM database has performance issues then this will also impact the performance of the DPM console.
One of the possible performance issue are fragmented Indexes in your database.

The Report Index Physical Statistics show the status of the fragmentation

Rebuild indexes
When the indexes are heavily fragmented then you need to rebuild them. You can do that by hand, but that’s a ‘hell of a job’.

Therefor I use the script below which will rebuild every index existed in database with fillfactor of 80.

DECLARE @TableName VARCHAR(255) DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(500) DECLARE @fillfactor INT SET @fillfactor = 80 DECLARE TableCursor CURSOR FOR SELECT OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME([object_id])+'.'+name AS TableName FROM sys.tables OPEN TableCursor FETCH NEXT FROM TableCursor INTO @TableName WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN SET @sql = 'ALTER INDEX ALL ON ' + @TableName + ' REBUILD WITH (FILLFACTOR = ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(3),@fillfactor) + ')' EXEC (@sql) FETCH NEXT FROM TableCursor INTO @TableName END CLOSE TableCursor DEALLOCATE TableCursor GO

(Source: \http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2009/01/30/sql-server-2008-2005-rebuild-every-index-of-all-tables-of-database-rebuild-index-with-fillfactor/)

BMR include or Exclude drives

2011-11-21T11:25:00.001+01:00

The Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) option in DPM 2010 allows you to recover servers from an image file. BMR is actually an option build in to Windows 2008 (R2) which can be utilized by DPM 2010.

By default the BMR will protect the “critical system data” According to the Microsoft definition –> critical data = System State and C drive and all other drivers that contain system data directories (Program files).

Check what is includes:

logon to the protected server
Open the Windows Server Backup Feature
Select Action - Backup ones

Select Different options

Select Custom

C
Click on Bare Metal Recover and check which other volumes are automatically selected.

Modify Drives included
Now you can choose to modify the BMR selection. This can be done by editing the file named Bmrbackup.cmd.

To alter this configuration do this:
On the protected server, open the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin\Bmrbackup.cmd file in notepad.

----------------------Modify the file below-------------------------------------------------------------------
rem Start a wbadmin.exe to create a BMR backup
start /WAIT %SystemRoot%\system32\wbadmin.exe start backup -allcritical -quiet -backuptarget:%1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------To include the d-drive---------------------------------------------------------
rem Start a wbadmin.exe to create a BMR backup
start /WAIT %SystemRoot%\system32\wbadmin.exe start backup -allcritical -include:D: -quiet -backuptarget:%1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------To exclude the e-drive---------------------------------------------------------
rem Start a wbadmin.exe to create a BMR backup
start /WAIT %SystemRoot%\system32\wbadmin.exe start backup -allcritical –exclude:E: -quiet -backuptarget:%1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: You also need to adjust the replica volume and recovery point volume sizes on the DPM server to account for the additional space required for the extra volume(s) being included in future BMR backups

(Source http://robertanddpm.blogspot.com/2010/09/bmr-can-protect-more.html)

Self service Recovery for SQL Cluster

2011-11-09T12:41:00.001+01:00

When enabling self service recovery for an Instance on a SQL Cluster you might run into the following error.

The specified SQL instance … is invalid or cannot be found (ID 32608).
If a SQL instance exists with the specified name, use Get-Datasource –ProductionServer <ProductionServer> –Inquire cmdlet to refresh the information. Then retry the Operation.

Solution
SQL instances of a Cluster need to be added in a special way.
The convention is: FQDN of the Resource\SQLVirtualname\SQLInstance

Example
FQDN resource = (blackberry).c260.gp.wan
SQLVirtualname= C265
Instance name – BLACKBERRY

In the example above you need to specify the following SQL Server Instance: (Blackberry).c260.gp.wan\C265\BLACKBERRY

ID 7: Unable to connect to the Active Directory Domain Services

2011-11-08T16:11:00.001+01:00

During the deployment or the attaching of agents you might run in to the error below.

Unable to connect to the Active Directory Domain Services database.

Make sure that the DPM server is a member of a domain and that a domain controller is running. Also verify that there is network connectivity between the DPM server and the domain controller.

ID: 7 Details: Unknown error (0x80005000) (0x80005000)

There is a knowledge database article for a issue like this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978900

Resolution for Error ID: 7

To resolve this error, change the Authenticated Users group so that it has read permissions for the organizational unit that the target server is a member of. To do this, follow these steps:

On the domain controller, open the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC.
Right-click the organizational unit that contains the target server, and then click Properties.
On the Security tab, add the Authenticated Users group and give them READ permissions.
Redeploy the DPM protection agent to the protected server

Alternative cause to this issue

The error code Unknown error (0x80005000) (0x80005000) points to another cause.

In this case the issue was caused by a slash in the OU Name the The target machine to install the DPM agent on was in an OU named "DR/ test Servers." DPM doesn't understand special characters in active directory, so the / was what tripped it up. When you rename the OU, you should be y able to install the agent.

Remove Tape from DPM database

2011-09-12T17:13:00.001+02:00

When the data on a tape has expired it will show in the Tape Management Report as Tapes due online in the next x weeks.

When you do not add the tape back in the library the tape will eventually show up as over due Tapes.

There might be a situation where you are unable or unwilling to place the tape back in the library. For instance when the tape is broke, has been in the cycles for to long or the tape is even lost. In these cases you don’t want the tape to show up in report each week.

The procedure below (written by Mike Jacquet from Microsoft ) shows how to remove tapes from the Tape Management Report.

To remove a tape media from the over due tape report, you can run a SQL script to remove the media from the DPM database.

To run the script, perform the following steps:

1) Open the DPM console and under the reporting tab, double-click the "tape management" report and select the number of weeks you want a report for (up to 4 weeks).
2) Once the report opens- go to the page that list Over Due Tapes.
3) Make a note of the "Tape labels" for the tapes you want to remove from the DPM database so they will no longer show up on the report.

4) Make a backup of the DPMDB Sql database before proceeding using the following command:

DPMBACKUP -db (The database will be saved in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\ShadowCopy\Database Backups folder.

5) Open SQL Enterprise manager and connect to the Server_name\$MSDPM2010 instance.

6) Under DATABASES - Highlight the DPMDB entry - then click on "NEW QUERY" button.
7) Copy / paste the following SQL script into the new query window.

---------- START COPY HERE -------------

-- overdue tapes
-- for clarity, set up the parameter as a variable
declare @paramTapeLabel as nvarchar(256)
set @paramTapeLabel = N'SAMPLE_TAPE_LABEL_NAME'

-- keys
declare @vMediaId as guid
declare @vGlobalMediaId as guid

-- if the delete gives trouble, add keyset after cursor
declare cur_label cursor
for select MediaId, GlobalMediaId
from tbl_MM_Media
where label = @paramTapeLabel;

open cur_label
while (0 = 0)
begin
fetch next from cur_label into @vMediaId, @vGlobalMediaId
-- test for being done
if @@fetch_status <> 0 break;

print 'Deleting MediaId = ' + cast(@vMediaId as varchar(36))
-- do a set of deletes atomically
begin transaction;
delete from tbl_MM_TapeArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_MediaMap
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Global_ArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vGlobalMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Global_Media
where MediaId = @vGlobalMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Media
where current of cur_label;

commit transaction;

end
close cur_label
deallocate cur_label

-------------- END COPY HERE ----------------------

8) replace the tape label name parameter in the script with the name of the tape label from the over due tape report that you want to delete.
set @paramTapeLabel = N'SAMPLE_TAPE_LABEL_NAME' <--- replace tape label between the single quotes ' '

9) Execute the SQL script.

10) Repeat steps 8. and 9. for each tape label that you want to delete.

DPMbackup Invalid command -db.

2011-03-15T12:28:00.001+01:00

The DPMbackup.exe command is a very useful tool to make a copy of your DPM database to a disk location. Using this copy you can easily recover from a corrupt database.

For our customers a use a scheduled task to make a dump of the DPM to disk on a daily bases. It has saved me from a full reinstall more then ones.

The issue I run in to is that the command DPMbackup –DB works perfectly from the command prompt, but when I use it in a script it gives me the following eror {Error: Invalid command –db.}

In my case it worked to specify the instance name as well. Like: DpmBackup.exe -db -instanceName MSDPM2010

Full Script

@Echo off
SET LOGFILE="E:\Backup_folder\SQL Daily Backup\DPMSQLBACKUP.LOG"
SET backupfile="C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\ShadowCopy\Database Backups\DPMDB.bak"
SET backuppath="E:\Backup_folder\SQL Daily Backup\"

for /f "tokens=2,3,4 " %%x in ("%date%") do set dstamp=%%z%%y%%x
for /f "tokens=1,2,3 " %%x in ("%time%") do set tstamp=%%x%%y%%z

ECHO ===================================================================>> %LOGFILE%
ECHO %dstamp% - %tstamp% >> %LOGFILE%
ECHO ===================================================================>> %LOGFILE%
DpmBackup.exe -db -instanceName MSDPM2010 >> %LOGFILE%
if not exist %backupfile% goto NOTEXIST
IF Exist %backuppath%\DPMDB_05.* del %backuppath%\DPMDB_05.*
IF Exist %backuppath%\DPMDB_04.* ren %backuppath%\DPMDB_04.* DPMDB_05.*
IF Exist %backuppath%\DPMDB_03.* ren %backuppath%\DPMDB_03.* DPMDB_04.*
IF Exist %backuppath%\DPMDB_02.* ren %backuppath%\DPMDB_02.* DPMDB_03.*
IF Exist %backuppath%\DPMDB_01.* ren %backuppath%\DPMDB_01.* DPMDB_02.*
IF Exist %backuppath%\DPMDB.* ren %backuppath%\DPMDB.* DPMDB_01.*

ECHO. >> %LOGFILE%
copy %backupfile% %backuppath% /Y >> %LOGFILE%
GOTO END

:NOTEXIST
ECHO DPMSQL DB BACKUP does not exist!!! >> %LOGFILE%

:END
ECHO ===================================================================>> %LOGFILE%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILE%
ECHO. >> %LOGFILE%

Six copies will remain on this location. DPMDB.bak is the most recent DPM SQL Backup and DPMDB_05.bak is the oldest backup file.

DPM White Papers

2011-01-21T16:19:00.001+01:00

Planning a DPM 2010 Deployment
Deploying System Center Data Protection Manager 2010
Data Protection Manager 2010 Operations Guide
Data Protection Manager 2010 Troubleshooting Guide

Instant recovery of Hyper-V and other DPM data

2011-01-13T20:42:00.001+01:00

Another post from my CFIT colleague Marcel van den Berg. This time about dBeamerDPM an add-on for DPM that allows IT administrators to achieve a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of near zero by an instantly recovery from a Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM). Other usage cases for dBeamerDPM are instant setup of a test environment.

For more info read his post Instant recovery of Hyper-V virtual machines and other DPM data

DPM End User Recovery–Recap

2011-01-10T19:57:00.001+01:00

Introduction
In my experience most restore requests are from users that accidentally deleted a file or replaced a good copy of a file by a bad copy. For a backup administrator this is a time consuming business. Wouldn’t it be nice if users could take care of these restores themself.
DPM allows users to restore their own files from the file server without the help of the backup administrator. This option is called End User Recovery (EUR)
Enabling users to recover previous versions of documents isn’t totally new – actually it is part of the technology build in to Windows 2003, called Shadow copy of shared folders.
The big difference is that that the copies no longer need to be stored on the file server itself, but that users are redirected to the DPM server. The beauty of this all is that it is totally transparent to the users. Users can restore copies of their own files for as long as you configured short-term disk protection.

How to enable EUR for DPM

Description	Example
For EUR is a schema change required. Make sure your account has the correct premisisons.	Domain admin + Schema admin permissions
To install the necessary Schema extension log onto the Domain Controller that holds the Schema master role and then create a drive mapping to the DPM installation directory on the DPM server, C:\program files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\End User Recovery, and run the DPMADSchemaExtension.exe.
Click on run.
Click yes, to start the Schema extension.
Enter the DPM server name Note: this is not the FQDN name of the server, but just the server name.
Enter your domain name. *This is the domain the DPM resides in. This should be the FQDN*
This field can be left blank if the DPM server is in the same domain as the File server that you want to protect
Click OK.
Click OK.
Logon to the DPM server and Select *Configure end user recovery.* The Active Directory button should be greyed out now.
EUR will be available to users after the next synchronization.

Set-up DPM protection Group

The Retention Range and the File Recovery Point are important values when you set-up the Protection group for the file server.

The Retention Range Value specifies how long versions of the users files are available for recovery.

The File Recovery Point value specifies how many versions per day are created. Only when the file has been changed a new version is created.

The Client
Windows Vista and Windows 7 Clients have the building functionality to use the DPM EUR as there prvious version point. For Windows XP clients to use End User Recovery a hotfix should be installed KB895536 describes the needed hotfix for the Shadow copy (Timewarp) client. Please also take a look at KB941133

Results

The result is that users can choose to restore one of the previous versions of the document direct from their Explorer interface.

DFS
In a DFS namespace, links can have multiple targets that contain replicated data. The file recovered by an end user may not be the expected file version, if you protect multiple DFS targets.

For example, the DFS namespace \\public\apps can connect users to the actual targets of \\public1\apps or \\public2\apps. If both targets are protected by DPM and the user attempts to recover a file from the DFS link, the Shadow Copy Client will display the shadow copy of the file from the first available protected target. If the targets are not synchronized at the time that the shadow copy is created, the user may recover an incorrect version of the file.

When you protect only one target of a DFS link and a user attempts to recover a file, the Shadow Copy Client will check the targets of the DFS link and connect the user to the protected target rather than the first available target.
(Taken from:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161316.aspx)

Schema Change drill down
The DPMADSchemaExtension tool performs the following tasks to support end-user recovery:

Extends the schema
Creates a container (MS-ShareMapConfiguration)
Grants the DPM server permissions to change the contents of the container
Adds mappings between source shares and shares on the replicas

With ADSI you can check the attributes added by DPM.

Domain
CN=System
CN=MS-ShareMapConfiguration

(Taken form:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795762.aspx)

Limit Previous version Client
The previous version client can be very helpful to users and Administrators. But there is also the risk that users overwrite files that they should have.

To limit the risk you can restrict who has the ability to restore using a Group Policy or restrict to make a copy of a file and not overwrite.

Disable restore Button
This functionality prevents a client from overwriting the current version of a file with an earlier version of the file. The client can only copy the earlier version of a file to an alternative location.
To do this, type either of the following commands at the command prompt, and then press ENTER

REG ADD HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer /v NoPreviousVersionsRestore /t REG_DWORD /d 1
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer /v NoPreviousVersionsRestore /t REG_DWORD /d 1

You can add the DWORD registry entry as part of a user's logon script.

We recommend that you add the DWORD entry to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subkey. We recommend this for the following reasons:
• The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subkey is not overwritten by policy updates.
• The HKEY_CURRENT_USER subkey can be written to by logon scripts that are using nonadministrator permissions.

Disable the Previous Versions tab
To disable the Previous Versions tab on individual client computers, follow these steps:
Type either of the following commands at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:

REG ADD HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer /v NoPreviousVersionsPage /t REG_DWORD /d 1
REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer /v NoPreviousVersionsPage /t REG_DWORD /d 1

(Source Technet Form answer by Mike Jacquet)

Related links and information
· Microsoft Technet article about End-User Recovery Considerations
· On Scug.be about EUR when file server is down
· Matt Marlor about the power and risk of End User Recovery - DPM End User Recovery - Powerful but Dangerous?

Disaster Recovery with DPM 2010 and Veeam B&R

2011-01-06T17:04:00.000+01:00

Creating a backup up is one thing, but being able to perform a good and reliable recovery is different story. There is only one way to be sure you can and that is.. test .. test .. test.
Most (backup) administrators perform a test restore on a regular basis, but what if your full environment is destroyed.
A disaster situation like this is much more complicated, there are always dependencies you did not though of before.

My CFIT Colleague Marcel van der Berg performed a disaster recovery test. In his test case only the tapes were left to work with. In his blog-post things-to-consider-when-using-microsoft-dpm-and-veeam-backup-replication, he describes the dependencies he found during the DR test.

Good reading..

System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 QFE Rollup [KB 2250444]

2010-11-16T18:34:00.001+01:00

There is a rollup packages for DPM 2010 available.

This hotfix rollup resolves the following issues:

You cannot protect the Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) on a secondary DPM 2010 server.
You are prompted to restart a client computer after you install an agent on the client.
DPM services crash, and you receive the error, "Unable to connect to the database because of a fatal database error."
MSDPM crashes, and event ID 945 is logged in the event log.
When you change a Protection Group, add a very large database, change the disk allocation, and then commit the Protection Group, DPM 2010 does not honor the user intent, and instead, DPM 2010 sets the sizes of replica and shadow copy volumes to the default sizes.
The Management tab does not link to information about the latest Microsoft Knowledge Base article for DPM 2010.
You receive the message, "Computers not synchronized," when you try to replicate DPM 2010 databases to a System Center Operations Manager.

* A reboot of the DPM server is required.
*The protected servers do not need a reboot.

Uninstall SQL 2005

2010-09-17T11:37:00.000+02:00

After a successful upgrade from DPM 2007 to DPM 2010 you can safely remove the SQL 2005 instance. The steps are shown below. Steps are for a local instance of SQL.

1) Start Program and features. Find SQL 2005 and select uninstall

2) Select the MS$DPM2007$ instance, also select the Workstation Components and click next.

3) Check the confirmation window and click Finish.

4) On Windows 2008 R2 you could receive the message “the program has known compatibility issues” Click Run Program.

5) When you receive the error. The following applications should be closed before continuing the installation.

6) Stop all related SQL 2005 services
-SQL server (MS$DPM2007$)
-SQL server agent (MS$DPM2007$)
-SQL server Reporting service MS$DPM2007$)

7) Press retry and the de-installation will complete

Datacenter disasters

2010-09-14T17:05:00.000+02:00

A bit off-topic but I'm currently reading Jason Buffington’s book Data Protection for Virtual Data Centers. One of the paragraph’s in the second chapter status What Could possibly go wrong? This section encourage you to think about what could possible go wrong in your environment.
This made me curious on stories available on the internet (which I like to share)

For fun

Data center stories that will make you laugh or cry

Picture from continuitysolutionsgroup.com

Good datacenter disaster stories are actually hard to find. If you find one please add it the link to the comments

Windows 2008 (R2) system state fails due FSCVSSWriter

2010-09-13T19:34:00.000+02:00

In a previous post we discussed the Windows 2008 (R2) system state backup failures because of a FSCVSSwriter issue.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        FSCVSSWriter
Date:          2-11-2009 17:36:17
Event ID:      11003
Task Category: (11)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      <server_name>
Description: Microsoft Forefront Protection VSS Writer failed when preparing for backup. Writer instance: FSCVSSWriter Error code: 0x00000000

The workaround in this post was to disable the FSCVSSWriter. With this workaround you will lose the functionality of the Microsoft Forefront Protection VSS Writer.

There is now a Hotfix Rollup 1 for Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange available that includes a fix for this issue. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2181692
----------------More details---------------

A system state backup fails while attempting to perform anything other than a full backup on a server running Forefront Protection for Exchange
Problem
A system state backup fails while attempting to perform anything other than a full backup on a server running Forefront Protection for Exchange.

The following will be generated within the Application Log:

Error FSCVSSWriter 11003

Microsoft Forefront Protection VSS Writer failed when preparing for backup. Writer instance: FSCVSSWriter Error code: 0x00000000

Warning VSS 8229

A VSS writer has rejected an event with error 0x800423f0, The shadow-copy set only contains only a subset of the

volumes needed to correctly backup the selected components of the writer.

Changes that the writer made to the writer components while handling the event will not be available to the requester. Check the event log for related events from the application hosting the VSS writer.

The hotfix role up is available on request here

APPLIES TO: Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server

DPM cannot set up an e-mail subscription

2010-09-11T12:10:00.000+02:00

In some cases (after a upgrade from RC to RTM for instance) the email subscription to reports is not working. Even when the SMTP Server settings are properly configured (on the SMTP server TAB under options) with a valid e-mail address.

Test messages work fine and you receive warning and error alert messages. Still you receive the error below.

-------------------------
DPM cannot set up an e-mail subscription for this report. The information may be missing or incorrect. Click Options in the Actions pane, then click the SMTP Server tab, and provide the correct SMTP server name and e-mail address. ID: 3010
---------------------------------

Solution
You should check if the SMTP server settings is correct set on the report server.

To configure report server e-mail using the Reporting Services Configuration tool

Verify that the Report Server Windows service has Send As permissions on the SMTP server.
Start the Reporting Services Configuration tool and connect to the report server instance.
On the Email Settings page, enter the name of the SMTP server. This value can be an IP address, a UNC name of a computer on your corporate intranet, or a fully qualified domain name.
In Sender Address, enter the name an account that has permission to send e-mail from the SMTP server.
Click Apply.

Exchange 2010 DAG with secondary DPM server

2010-09-09T09:21:00.001+02:00

When protecting a Exchange 2010 DAG on the Primary DPM server, you will not be able to select the DAG databases on the Secondary DPM server. This is by design.

Workaround: DPM supports protecting multiple copies of a database (one with express full & Incremental and remaining with copy backup ). You can protect the database copy in onsite from the primary DPM server and the database copy in offsite from the secondary DPM server in offsite.

Remove (untrusted) machines from agents tab

2010-08-19T18:49:00.000+02:00

The uninstall agent option is not available for untrusted machines in DPM 2010. Therefore you need to remove the agents manually (Using uninstall program in control panel).

To remove the machine from the agent tab you need to use the remove-productionserver.ps1 Powershell script.

Attach untrusted machines using FQDN

2010-08-19T17:15:00.001+02:00

DPM 2010 now supports protection of Workgroup machines and machines in untrusted domains. The agents needs to be installed manually after that you specify the DPM server with the setdpmserver command

Namespace
In configurations where the name space of the DPM server is different then the name space of the protected server. It could be necessary to use the –productionServerDnsSuffix. This allows you to attach the DPM agents in the console using Full qualified DNS name instant of NETBIOS name. The –productionServerDnsSuffix should specify the FQDN of the protected server.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin>SetDpmServer.exe –dpm servername server01.domain.ad -isnondomainserver -username user01 -productionServerDnsSuffix dmz.local

DPM 2010 Management Pack Beta

2010-06-23T23:08:00.000+02:00

David from SCDPM online posted the link to the beta version of the DPM 2010 management pack for SCOM 2007 (r2)

http://connect.microsoft.com/site840/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=29486

Recatalog an Expired Tape

2010-06-21T13:07:00.001+02:00

By default you are unable to restore data from a expired tape. Also the recatalog option is disabled for expired tapesWhen a has expired in DPM 2007. But you can use the following work around.

1) In the DPM admin console select the TAB Library Management, Select the Tape and mark the tape as Free.

2) Select the tape again Unmark tape as Free

3) Now the option re-catalog imported tape is available

4) After the catalog is completed you should be able to restore data from the tape

Note: On the restore tab you will find the items under External DPM Tapes

When you use this option to restore a Exchange mailbox; On the restore tab you will be unable to drive down to mailbox level. It is also not possible to restore to the Recovery Store Group (RSG).

DPM vNext survey

2010-06-18T23:03:00.001+02:00

With DPM 2010 just released this month, Microsoft is already thinking about the next release (Vnext).
your input is more then welcome. Share your thoughts on the Future Enhancements to DPM with the DPM Product Team.

Survey Link: http://connect.microsoft.com/site840/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=11130

SharePoint with multiple WFE servers

2010-06-15T23:19:00.000+02:00

When starting protection of a SharePoint farm with multiple Web Front-End (WFE) servers, you need to perform additional step.
When you run the ConfigureSharePoint –EnableSharePointProtection command you might receive the following error in a environment with more then one WFE server.

Cannot start service SPWriter on computer '.'.
An error occurred while trying to start the Sharepoint Vss Writer.

In this case you first need to run the command:
C:\program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server extensions\12\bin\Stsadm.exe -o registerwsswriter

Note: The administrator credentials you provide for the Windows SharePoint Services farm must be a local administrator on the WFE server

More info: TechNet forum

DPM Technet forum

2010-06-02T16:04:00.001+02:00

System Center Data Protection Manager forum provides you an opportunity to join a community of DPM customers where you can share knowledge, get questions answered, and learn from others with IT environments similar to yours. Start by posting DPM related questions in the forum and leverage the knowledge available in the new forum community. There are a lot of feature experts from the community ready to help and ofcourse there are folks from Microsoft who design, build, test and support the product.

Link: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-us/dataprotectionmanager/threads

DPM 2010 SQL (Reporting) service crashes

2010-05-24T18:26:00.000+02:00

Checking the event log of the DPM server I found the following errors.

----------error 1------------------
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Report Server Windows Service (MSDPMV3BETA1EVAL)
Date:          5/22/2010 5:55:58 PM
Event ID:      139
Task Category: Startup/Shutdown
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      xxxxxxx.c2ict.com
Description:
The application domain WindowsService_0 failed to start. Error: Microsoft.ReportingServices.Diagnostics.Utilities.EvaluationCopyExpiredException: The evaluation period for this instance of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services has expired. A license is now required.
----------error 1------------------

----------error 2------------------
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Report Server Windows Service (MSDPMV3BETA1EVAL)
Date:          5/22/2010 5:55:58 PM
Event ID:      136
Task Category: Activation
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      xxxxxx.c2ict.com
Description:
The evaluation period for this instance of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services has expired. A license is now required.
----------error 2------------------

----------error 3------------------
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Report Server Windows Service (MSDPMV3BETA1EVAL)
Date:          5/22/2010 5:55:57 PM
Event ID:      107
Task Category: Management
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      xxxxxx.c2ict.com
Description:
Report Server Windows Service (MSDPMV3BETA1EVAL) cannot connect to the report server database.
----------error 3------------------

The service manager shows also that the SQL and SQL reporting services could not start and stopped

Checking the installed SQL instances shows that there is a second instance still active from the previous (beta) version of DPM 2010.

This instance can successfully be removed using the remove program wizard in the control panel.
Select remove.

Select the old/expired instance

DPM 2010 upgrade Advisor

2010-05-22T15:53:00.001+02:00

Now that the final version is (nearly) available for download it time to plan the upgrade.

There are various versions of Operating system, SQL and DPM from which you can upgrade to DPM2010. These different versions also require different upgrade scenarios. The upgrade advisor developed by the Microsoft DPM team can help you with that. Enter your current configuration and the upgrade path will be displayed.

Download link to the DPM 2010 Upgrade Advisor

Agent update failed

2010-04-24T18:20:00.001+02:00

After installing the new Hotfix rollup package for DPM 2007 (KB979970) you have to update the agents. In my case this went fine for almost all agents.
Only the agents on the SharePoint servers had a nasty issue.

The (push) upgrade failed with the following error.

Agent Operation failed (ID 370)
The agent operation fauled because an error occurred wile running the installation program on <compter name> (ID 313). Details: The installation source for the product is not available. Verify that the source exits anf that you can access it (ox8007064c)
-----------------
The local agent installation shows a same kind of error:

DPMAgentInstaller failed with errorcode =8007064c, error says: The installation source for this product is not available. Verify that the source exists and that you can access it.

Check log files in [WINDIR]Temp\MSDPM*.LOG
Press Enter key to close the window
-----------------
For this error messages it is not clear which installation files are missing.

The log MSDPMAgentPatchInstall.LOG (windir\temp) shows in more detail which files are required.
--------------------------
SI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:58:789]: SOURCEMGMT: Source is invalid due to missing/inaccessible package.
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:58:789]: Note: 1: 1706 2: -2147483647 3: dpmra.msi
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:58:789]: SOURCEMGMT: Processing net source list.
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:59:810]: SOURCEMGMT: Now checking product {07CCDE6A-1D92-2C9C-D091-9E682643ABCC}
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:59:810]: SOURCEMGMT: Attempting to use LastUsedSource from source list.
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:59:810]: SOURCEMGMT: Trying source C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.8844.0\.
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:59:810]: Note: 1: 2203 2: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.8844.0\dpmra.msi 3: -2147287037
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:59:810]: SOURCEMGMT: Source is invalid due to missing/inaccessible package.
MSI (s) (8C:D0) [13:27:59:810]: MainEngineThread is returning 1612
-----------------------------

The agent upgrade requires the file dpmra.msi from the directory C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.8844.0\.
This is actually the installation file from the current agent version (2.0.8844). The issue is that this directory does not exist on the server and the installation files are not in any other directory on the server.

Solution (workaround)
The only way I could get the required source files was installing the old agents files (2.0.8864) to (a temporary)machine. The source is available on the DPM server (\\dpmservername\c$\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.8844.0).
When installing the agent a temporary directory is created on the machine (like: 4cf3806aac3ed28e02810670b5) copy during installation the files from this directory to temp directory.
Now you have a valid copy of the installation files. Copy these installations files to the server that fails to upgrade the agent (directory C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.8844.0\) and retry the agent upgrade

Not a very nice solution, but at least it worked for me…

DPM2010 IS RTM

2010-04-19T20:08:00.001+02:00

DPM2010 has been released to manufacturing. Announced at MMS !!!

Evaluation software will be available this week and full packaged product (and pricing) will be available by the end of May as it is released into the various Microsoft channels. It will be generally available and on the Microsoft Price List by June 1

More on:
http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/archive/2010/04/19/sc-data-protection-manager-2010-is-released-to-manufacturing.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/jbuff/default.aspx

Great news (to bad I could not be there because of the Volcano thing)

Enjoy!!!

DPM 2007: Hotfix Rollup Package - KB979970

2010-04-03T15:15:00.001+02:00

On March the 29th a new Hotfix rollup package for DPM 2007 has been release by Microsoft

Available here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979970

Information form the Microsoft website:

This hotfix rollup resolves the following issues:

You may experience a crash in the Data Protection Manager engine when you run a tape job from a protected server.
When you use the Data Protection Manager Management Console to browse Microsoft SharePoint Server recovery points or when you back up a SharePoint point to tape from disk, you receive the following error message:
PrmDatasetDatasourceMismatchForArchiveOfSC (=30132)
A SharePoint recovery point in a secondary Data Protection Manager has a different set of datasets than the corresponding recovery point in the primary Data Protection Manager.
Alerts for standby continuous replication (SCR) servers are not displayed in Microsoft Operations Manager.
Default disk allocations may grow unexpectedly for system state protection.
When you restore a SharePoint site that contains a WEB host header to an alternate location, the site is restored to the default site.
Shared Services Provider (SSP) database protection is blocked when one or more SSP names begin with the same SSP name.
The server is slow, and time-out errors may occur, when you run a backup-to-tape job.
Data Protection Manager-owned tapes are marked as unrecognized.
Data Protection Manager cannot retrieve SharePoint catalog information. Therefore, item-level recovery is not possible for some content databases. Additionally, you may receive the following error code:
3103
You receive the following protection agent error code when bulk tape jobs cannot be completed successfully:
0x80990C27
You may experience a Data Protection Manager engine crash during backup to tape.
The Data Protection Manager Management Console does not display recovery points before the year 2010 in some scenarios.

This hotfix rollup also includes all previously released hotfix rollups for Data Protection Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1):

Prerequisites

The following list contains prerequisites for the hotfix rollup:

You must have System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 installed.
You must have critical update KB962975 installed

DPM 2010 the story so far..

2010-02-20T17:34:00.002+01:00

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.

Automatic rerun of failed jobs;
Automatic consistency checks;
Automatic grow of DPM volumes;
Automatic discovery of SharePoint and SQL databases;
SLA reports.

Post can be found here

Dynamic Disk Hotfix

2010-02-18T11:03:00.001+01:00

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

DPM 2010 RC documentation

2010-02-12T10:00:00.000+01:00

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

SharePoint 2007 recovery point fails after Password change

2010-02-11T18:01:00.001+01:00

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 Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10004
Date: 10-2-2010
Time: 16:10:49
User: N/A
Computer: <server_name>
Description: DCOM got error "Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password. " and was unable to logon <account_name> in order to run the server:{

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10005
Date: 10-2-2010
Time: 18:14:55
User: N/A
Computer: <server_name>
Description:DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service vds with arguments "" in order to run the server:

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

Sharepoint 2007 Protection error

2010-02-11T17:26:00.001+01:00

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

DPM 2010 Storage Calculators

2010-02-10T11:40:00.000+01:00

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

Data Protection Manager 2010 Release Candidate – now available

2010-02-09T15:21:00.001+01:00

The RC version of DPM 2010 is now available for download – Lets get started

System State back-up fails – part x

2010-02-09T10:53:00.000+01:00

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
Source: SQLinstance
Date: 5-2-2010 10:53:51
Event ID: 18210
Task Category: (2)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: SYSTEM
Computer: servername.domain.ad

Description:BackupMedium::Report Error: write failure on backup device '{18C03E39-BD81-4166-8BE1-230C4343980F}6'. Operating system error 995(error not found).

Application error 1

Log Name: Application
Source: SQLVDI
Date: 5-2-2010 10:53:51
Event ID: 1
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: servername.domain.ad

Description:SQLVDI: Loc=SVDS::CloseDevice. Desc=Abort detected. ErrorCode=(0). Process=3072. Thread=5916. Server. Instance=xxxxxxx. VD=Global\{18C03E39-BD81-4166-8BE1-230C4343980F}4_SQLVDIMemoryName_0.

Application error 2

Log Name: Application
Source: SQLWRITER
Date: 5-2-2010 10:53:51
Event ID: 24583
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: servername.domain.ad

Description:Sqllib error: OLEDB Error encountered calling ICommandText::Execute. hr = 0x80040e14. SQLSTATE: 42000, Native Error: 3013

Error state: 1, Severity: 16
Source: Microsoft SQL Native Client
Error message: BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally.
SQLSTATE: 42000, Native Error: 3202
Error state: 2, Severity: 16
Source: Microsoft SQL Native Client
Error message: Write on "{18C03E39-BD81-4166-8BE1-230C4343980F}2" failed: 995(error not found)

Application error 3

Log Name: Application
Source: SQLinstance
Date: 5-2-2010 10:53:51
Event ID: 3041
Task Category: (6)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: SYSTEM
Computer: servername.domain.ad

Description: BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE <DATABASENAME>. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.

Application error 4

Log Name: Application
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Backup
Date: 5-2-2010 10:53:55
Event ID: 521
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords:
User: SYSTEM
Computer: servername.domain.ad

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.

Application error 5

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

DPM2010 RC is baked

2010-02-08T23:12:00.001+01:00

News is spreading quickly

Image from twitter.com

Is your VMware snapshot application consistent ??

2010-02-08T10:17:00.000+01:00

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

TechNet Webcast: Monitoring, Backing Up, and Restoring Exchange Server 2010 with System Center (Level 300)

2010-02-05T19:35:00.001+01:00

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

Register here

Thanks to Marnix: http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/

DPM 2010 RC: Release date

2010-01-15T11:30:00.000+01:00

Just attended the webcast on the DPM 2010 release candidate. Great session…

The session is available for download here

The RC version of DPM 2010 will be release by Microsoft early Februari

Good news is that the current beta version can be upgraded to the RC version and later on to the final version.

New in the Release candidate (in compare to the beta)

Support for workgroup machines !!!
Active directory protection
SQL end-user recovery

Blogs about the webcast

What's New & Improved in Data Protection Manager 2010 (SCDPMonline.org)
System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 Beta Webcast (SCUG.be)
DPM 2010 webcast (Q&A)

DPM2010 RC Webcast Q&A

2010-01-14T22:13:00.000+01:00

Below an overview of the questions asked diuring the DPM2010 RC webcast and the response from the Microsoft DPM team

Question: woohoo! So there is no reason we cant "go live" with 2010 when the RC comes out?
Answer: Absolutely. We'd love that.
Question: We went live with 2010 beta because 2007 beta let you upgrade to RC and release. Couldn't find info on if this is the case with 2010, can you awnser that? Not a huge issue if we have to reset our disk to disk but it would be nice :). Thanks!
Answer: You can upgrade Beta -> RC -> RTM
Question: Will virtual tape backups still be available in 2010
Answer: VTLs remain supported
Question: When will DPM 2010 RC be released?
Answer: Early February
Question: Will ILR still require the Hyper-V role on Win2008 R2 with the DPM RC?
Answer: Yes. We depend on the Hyper-VＶＨＤdriver
Question: The beta has changed the behaviour for Windows clients - they now have to be in a separate protection group, and they have no system state backup. Is this a permanent change?
Answer: Yes, that is a permanent change.
Question: Will DPM 2010 support backing up to USB drives without having to purchase 3rd party software?
Answer: No. We will take that feedback in the next release. With third party products like CristaLink FireStreamer will work in DPM ２０１０。
Question: is 2010 going to support iron mountains offsite solution? and if so, is iron mountain just basically using a secondary dpm server at their location, or do they have something beyond that?
Answer: yes. DPM 2010 will continue support with IRM offsite solution. They have a different backup technology for offsiting and dont have secondary DPM server on the cloud
Question: Hi, Is there any improvements in management of tapes in DPM 2010? In 2007 is very little configuration you can do, not very flexible...
Answer: We have made substantial investments in tape backup reliability and have made incremental feature investments. In case you are passiobate about any feature in particular please drop a note in the DPM Newsgroup
Question: When can we expect RTM?
Answer: RC - Feb first week. RTM - Spring 2010
Question: We're advising clients to use DPM 2010 now as part of our designs; will the final retal version require any reinstallations if running Release Client?
Answer: Nope. Seamless upgrades
Question: Any chance the console will allow installation on a remote server for management, to avoid the RDP shuffle?
Answer: You could use the RemoteApp functionality in Windows Server 2008 to view the console remotely rather than logging on explicitly
Question: Is Exchgange 2003 support going to be bettern (no need to copy dlls, easier and more robust recovery of mailboxes)?
Answer: The E2K3 support remains the same. We cannot redist Exchange binaries.
Question: Can I test a 2010 DPM server in an environment already using 2007?
Answer: Yes
Question: can i make an inplace upgrade from beta to rc to RTM?
Answer: Yes
Question: is it possible to backport scripts from 2010 to 2007?
Answer: Most of them should just work. Few extensions.
Question: Are there any additional features/functionality in 2010 vs 2007 regarding backing up the DPM server with third-party tape backup applications (such as IBM TSM)? It seems to be a common scenario that the windows systems group uses DPM and then the enterprise backup group backs that up with a 3rd party system.
Answer: DPM 2010 comes with the DPM writer which allows backup up the DPM data in the DPM storage Pool to tape use a Tape Archival product of your choice
Question: Can Jason really talk underwater? :-)
Answer: Of course he can :)
Question: Does the Beta version backup Exchange 2010 DAG?
Answer: Yes it does.
Question: Will DPM 2010 also require a recidilous amount of free space on Windows 2008 R2 to make a System State backup?
Answer: Yes. No change on that.
Question: Are there significant improvements in reporting? Reporting was one of the areas that was pretty lacking in 2007 as far as getting information about what the current status of things is as well as what happened in the past. Such as tape backups, when they happened, what size backups were etc etc.
Answer: We've extended some support. You can use the DB Views to build more reports.
Question: Two take issues I experience with the 2007 version were not being able to exlude an days from longer term backs to tape to prevent weekend tape creation, and DPM not being aware of write protected tapes in a library. Have either of these been addressed?
Answer: Both of them are addressed :)
Question: I cannot hear anything am i not suppose to>
Answer: please signout and sign back in
Question: Can we download the slides? I don't see them in the Live Meeting "handout".
Answer: Please do a right click and select the Print option
Question: where can i find a listing of all 2010 scripts that will work & supported on 2007?
Answer: THere is no such list. However most Powershell cmdlets have been extended and not broken.
Question: In the beta, it looks like from Hyper-V, if you set a backup to use a snapshot method, if over time something happens where DPM decides it can't use that any longer, DPM will flip to a save-state method. There doesn't appear to be a way to tell it to just error out so that it won't take down critical VMs. Is that still the case going forward?
Answer: backing up using saved state does not bring the VMs.
Question: this may not be within the scope of this webinar, but do you know if any dpm clients dont use tapes at all and just use the iron mountain solution for off site storage?
Answer: yes. Several customers use DPM DR as replacement for tape. Some use cloud backups form IRM as well.
Question: Will DPM2010 be able to protect SQL DB's in a failover cluster?
Answer: Yes of course
Question: Does it support SBS2003? Or work if it's "not supported"?
Answer: Supported
Question: Will Microsoft provide the cloud based DPM server?
Answer: Yes. In the works. Not in DPM 2010.
Question: backing up Hyper-V is there any pausing of the VHD?
Answer: Hyper-V backup has two types of backup - Save state and Child partition. Save state backup needs to save the VM, backup and restore state of VM. Child partition backup works without causing any downtime of VM.
Question: I was very disappointed with the updates to DPM 2007 with things like Exhange 2010 support. I love DPM 2007 and am looking at upgrading but am concerned about the lack of timely updates for DPM 2007. Every other vendor has a current product out that supports Exchange 2010 except for DPM. What is the teams commitment to keep updates for new Microsoft products when they are released as apposed having to wait for a while new version?
Answer: Totally committed. DPM 2010 has first class support for E2010
Question: [private] Wow, congrats... 300+ attendees...
Answer: Thanks!
Question: Is there any implementation of tape pools that can be set up and allocated to specific protection groups. For example if I have 3 LTO4 tapes in a library can I make sure that only my Exchange protection group uses them versus the 4 LTO3 tapes that I would like used for my file server protection group? (IM so tired of DPM 2007 randomly picking free tapes from the library)
Answer: We have kept the design simple. Thanks for the feedback. We will keep it in mind for the next release.
Question: Is bare metal recovery now fully integrated? Does it support SIS for Win2k8+?
Answer: yes. BMR is now integrated in DPM 2010. However, SIS is not supported for it.
Question: Will DPM 2010 support decreasing the size of the replica and recovery point volumes without having to completet delete the backup and recreate it?
Answer: Yes, DPM 2010 provides ability to shrink volumes as well
Question: Thanks. Wasn't on the list :-)
Answer: :)
Question: Will the RC be available early to MSDN or Technet subscribers?
Answer: Will be a public download
Question: DPM historically has gone "overkill" for us on the recommended size for Exchange volumes. Is this being tuned downward?
Answer: Yes. We've addressed this based on feedback
Question: In DPM 2007, all agent machines need to be Domain-Joined. Is this still required in DPM 2010?
Answer: Workgroup and untrusted domains are supported in DPM 2010
Question: Is SharePoint item level recovery possible for MOSS2007 without the Recovery Farm? It sounded like this was only for MOSS 2010.
Answer: Only MOSS 2010. Needed work from Sharepoint product.
Question: what is SAP?
Answer: "System Analysis and Program Development
Question: Will disks be able to be used as long-term storage?
Answer: You can use disk for long term with solutions like FireStreamer
Question: How about file grain recovery for exchange down to the indiviudal messages
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: Restore emails with a mailbox in Exchange or just the whole mailbox?
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: If using VSS hardware providers with DPM2010, which are installed on the Hyper-V host + the hotfix, will we need a hardware snapshot license for the storage?
Answer: Typically you would need a license - depending on your SAN vendor
Question: Splitting a SQL server backup between protection groups (in the beta) causes auto-protection to be disabled. Excluding a DB also causes this. Will either or both be addressed?
Answer: The behavior remains same.
Question: If I am backing up Hyper-V hosts can I restore specific SQL databases as well as items?
Answer: You can restore the files and mount them.
Question: Is there support for long term backup to disk only elminating the need for tape?
Answer: You can achieve this by using software like FireStreamer which virtualizes disk as tape
Question: will you support remote administration? currently the DPM MMC cannot be run or installed on remote clients
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: Is it now best practice to split Exchange and SQL backups to separate protection groups from your file workloads?
Answer: Doesnt really matter. PGs should define protection policy intents.
Question: WIll data colocation on disk be covered on this presentation?
Answer: Any specific questions?
Question: DPM 2007 required two way trust across domains to protect SQL, is this still the case?
Answer: DPM 2010 will support backup with one way trust as well
Question: Can you restore a single mailbox item for the user with DPM 2010?
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: On my previous question, backing up a 200 GB VM via save state will cause it to stop responding to pings and the outisde world for a matter of minutes. If it's a web server hosting a production site, that's very important. We've seen issues where if a computer really needs a defrag or is low on free space, DPM will flip from the snapshot method to save-state. It is very important that we have an option to not force this to be automatic. You didn't answer the question of if such an option will exist.
Answer: DPM does not have the capability to control the type of backup for a VM. Its determined by the Hyper-V VSS writer.
Question: Will Bare Metal Recovery use VSS the same way as the System State? Will this have the same problem of using a ridiculous amount of space on the DPM server?
Answer: Bare Metal Backups will go directly to DPM server without a staging space on the protected machine
Question: When doing DPM to DPM protection it is very cumbersome to select the datasources from the first DPM server to be protected on the second. Could you make that easier?
Answer: Lots of perf and usability improvements in DPM 2010
Question: Just to clarify - SQL backups will have auto-protection only if you have it within a single protection group, and don't exclude any databases?
Answer: Yes
Question: Is it ok if I run DPM server as virtual machine on Hyper-V and install Hyper-V role inside guest for ILR?
Answer: You cannot enabled Hyper-V role inside a VM.. and hence ILR wont work
Question: we have 2 data centers, both with production data. will 2010 support the dpm servers in either data cetner backing up the other as sort of a dual primary/secondary role? or will we still not have secondary protection at one of our two data centers?
Answer: Yes. Cyclic protection is supported in DPM 2010.
Question: Any Tape Management enhancements in DPM2010?
Answer: Any specific asks?
Question: will hyper-v item level include the ability to restore System State as well as individual files?
Answer: Only files within the vhds can be resotored.
Question: Can we clarify the bare metal recovery optionss? DPM 2007 (v2) requires SRT. I can see bare metal recovery as an option in the DPM console in the demo... however the presenter mentioned SRT will still be required for Server 2003 clients.
Answer: For Windows Server 2008 and above, it is supported in DPM as shown in the demo. For Windows Server 2003, you'll need SRT
Question: With DPM 2010, will it be possible to only backup Calendars in Exch 2010?
Answer: DPM backs up at the granularity of Exchange databases
Question: I'm asking for tape library partitioning
Answer: Hardware partitioning will work seamlessly. Also Library Sharing between multiple DPMs is supported.
Question: We've been hitting the limits with the maximum amount of provisioned recovery points - is this limit still there on 2010?
Answer: With W2K8 R2...that limit goes up!
Question: Removing libraries used to be a problem. Is that possible in DPM2010?
Answer: No known issues.
Question: The beta does not have a concept of "enabling secondary protection" on a primary. You just go in and tick it as part of a protection group. This presently can cause a crash if you select a non-existent host (which will show up if you've previously backed it up and then disable it). There seems a level of sloppiness in the approach, although I appreciate endeavours to make it faster and more streamlined. Is this undergoing continued improvement before RC/RTM?
Answer: thanks for teh feedback. I am not aware of a crash in that flow and sorry for the trouble. please do post on our newsgroup with the details of the issue and we'll look into it
Question: Are you aware on any partners that will provide integration for Vmware virtual machines?
Answer: We are not aware of any.
Question: Can we expect support for SQL Server 2008 R2 and Essential Business Server 2008 R2 as soon as they are RTM?
Answer: Yes
Question: Autogowing volumes is sweet :-)
Answer: thanks :)
Question: If you remove a VM from Virtual Machine Manager, it deletes the VM configuration, the VHD as well as the cluster resource group and its resources. When you recover the VM to its Original Location, it fails because it cannot find the cluster resource group. Is this fixed?
Answer: The way to restore such a VM in DPM2010 has changed. Recovery the VM through the alternate location flow and once the recovery is complete, make the VM highly available.
Question: does dpm2010 support GPT disks and is there a specific size limit?
Answer: Yes. All supported limits.
Question: volumes shrink is supported?
Answer: Yes. For Recovery Point volumes
Question: I did not observe co-location for file workloads in the beta - only SQL. Is this new?
Answer: This is suppported only for client computers, SQL and Hyper-V workloads
Question: What are the criteria as to whether data can be collocated or not?
Answer: SQL, Hyper-V, Clients
Question: What are replica volumes?
Answer: DPM volumes are of two types - Replica volumes and Recovery point volumes. Replica volumes contains the actual data which is backed up and the Recovery point volume contains the different point in times of the data.
Question: I take it we can't fine tune the percentage at which the Auto-Grow Volume increases. Is that correct?
Answer: 25% or 10GB whichever is greater. We dont want too many grows since it affects the system.
Question: and replica?
Answer: not supported by VSS without losing snapshots.
Question: Great job answering questions guys!
Answer: Thanks :)
Question: I've been using the Beta for quite some time now. I receive error messages by mail when autogrow grows a volume, or when i change the manual selection in the client backup. Will this change in the RC?
Answer: Not an known issue. What is the error you get?
Question: For tape backup, is there any plan for an option to both encypt and compress data, or is that just not possible/too high of overhead?
Answer: Correct
Question: Is this the RC?
Answer: Yes. Close enough to it. RC is under final testing.
Question: Will there be an OpsMgr Management Pack available when DPM 2010 ships?
Answer: Yes. Of course.
Question: VM recovery to Original Location in DPM2010 beta works fine, as long as the cluster resource group is still available. But this is what VMM2008R2 deletes.
Answer: in that case use the alternate location recovery to the shared storage and them make the VM highly available using Failove rcluster.
Question: What is the upgrade story from DPM 2007 to DPM 2010?
Answer: In place and seamless for W2K8 upwards on X64
Question: It used to be possible to restore from tape on a DPM secondary, which could accelerate a rebuild. However the DPM volumes don't seem to be browseable from with DPM anymore - so can't do the tape restore. Is this no longer going to be possible?
Answer: Media Load is still supported. In the DPM 2010 console the path to the storage location for the datasource is listed.
Question: When is the anticipated release of RC?
Answer: First week of Feb
Question: Does DPM 2010 still require anti-virus software to delete rather than quarantine/flag suspect files to avoid replica corruption issues?
Answer: Continue on failure will jump over these files
Question: We are no longer using slow, expensive tape for long-term storage, so 20th century, and would prefer to not use FireStreamer. Is there support for long-term disk based storage on the roadmap?
Answer: Firestreamer is a VTL that writes to disk
Question: I only have a copy of the data @ the data center using a different copy mechamise I do not have DPM as of yet will I have to go back to the remote servers or can I use the current copy of the files.
Answer: DPM provides manual replication which allows you to copy the data to DPM replica volumes manually and then you can run a consistency check to synchronize any changes between the data of the protected machines and DPM
Question: Will we a list of all the questions being asked?
Answer: The Q/A will be available later after the webcast
Question: everyone is looking for a "tape drive killer" type product. will dpm 2010 fit the bill ? i'd rather not use tapes at all for long term storage.
Answer: Secondary DPM protection is an answer.
Question: How many times will the consistency check fire in a row if it still fails?
Answer: fires only once automatically
Question: DPM is by far the best backup product I have ever used (and I've used a huge number). Please keep up the great work!
Answer: Thanks!
Question: dpm 2010 appears to be an OS type setup is that correct?
Answer: Its an application setup. Not sure if we understand the question.
Question: Does DPM 2010 do data deduplication?
Answer: DPM uses VSS technology which de-duplicates the data substantially - especially for longer retention periods as only the delta changes are stored though the entire volume view at different times are recreated.
Question: but the secondary still needs to backed off to tape, right ?
Answer: the Secondary can have coarser backup frequency and offer much longer range of retention.
Question: Could you elaborate just a bit on the "continue on failure" functionality, please?
Answer: If a file fails backup, we jump over and report a warning but give a backup.
Question: How will be Windows cliens licensed?
Answer: It will be much cheaper than the server licenses - much cheaper than the OS license for sure :)
Question: Does 2010 support any type of deduplication?
Answer: DPM 2010 provides storage optimization in terms of how different recovery points are stored in the minimum space possible. But it does not support dededuplication across machines.
Question: If we upgrade from DPM2007 SP1 to DPM2010 RC, can existing SQL database backups be consolidated into a "collocated" storage volume?
Answer: You'll need to stop protection and put them into a new protection group
Question: The Enterprise Vault filter is shown as incompatible. It works fine if you add it to the exclusion in the registry, rather than using the consistency check method of backup. You also need to set EV to not allow DPMRA.exe to recall files, but otherwise there are no issues. While it doesn't make sense to add this in with DPM, could the dev/support teams work to provide more guidance on these kinds of scenarios for admins?
Answer: DPM 2010 has a file system filter model and will not need this.
Question: longer than 64 days VSS default ?
Answer: DPM 2010 provides 64 recovery points for files and 512 recovery points for applications.
Question: Would you advise SystemState backups in a seperate PG or in the same group as the other disks and data?
Answer: System State backups typically have a different / non-frequent backup protection intent. So separate PG would be recommended.
Question: Why isnt there a movement to make all System Center console similar in navigation. In my opinion the dev team should follow the Ops Mgr standard.
Answer: THanks for the feedback!
Question: This is GREAT thanks alot!
Answer: Thanks for the support!
Question: If a protected server crashes, will DPM 2010 still fail the replica (inconsistent) and require a consistency check with a "server restarted unexpectedly" message?
Answer: Yes, a consistency check will be required in this case
Question: Can laptops be backed up through the Internet or do they require a VPN/WAN connection?
Answer: Yes
Question: Will there be any limitations on how much data and retention period with Dpm Online to Windows Azure?
Answer: Still in limited Beta.
Question: will there be a better possibilities in DPM 2010 to import and catalog tapes of which the retention date is expired?
Answer: Recatalog flows remain the same. Any feedback on them?
Question: DPM is our first choice for customers and I am very glad the product is really improved. Congratulations!
Answer: Thanks!
Question: As part of the SPLA program, can we put a DPM server at the customer's site for providing off-site backup? We host their servers here at our hosting facility?
Answer: The question is not entirely clear. DPM does provide offsite backup using tape or secondary DPM server.
Question: is it possible to do a full backup from the clients ? and then do a BMR when a machine needs to be replaces so all programs and settings will be included
Answer: Thanks for the feedback... We're supporting data backup in this release
Question: Clarification to the previous question, laptops can be backed up through the Internet?
Answer: Laptops can be backed up over VPN
Question: Does DPM2010 work together with DirectAccess for seamless backups?
Answer: On the roadmap. Being considered in DPM 2010.
Question: Is there any improvement in error reporting of tape backups? In 2007 I occasionally have a tape job fail and there is no record of the failed job in 'alerts' or etc to be able to re run the job. Is there some kind of job log that woudl allow you to re-run any previously scheduled tape backup job?
Answer: Any job failure should create an alert. If you have seen DPM 2007 eat up an alert, please write to us on the DPM newsgroups or open a support case. we will take a look.
Question: Can I configure the DR DPM-server that I have offsite to continously only store the latest backup since that is what I need in a DR scenario?
Answer: You should be able to set the retention time on the secondary DPM server to 1 day
Question: If there is a client on a laptop that is using DirectAccess server, will the backup still require a VPN?
Answer: We are looking into support for DirectAccess. there are some issues in the beta that prevents this from working
Question: Why does DPM require a consistency check when the server crashes? VSS issues? If our server with five volumes each at 2 terabytes crashes, requiring a CC on all volumes, this is a big deal for us...
Answer: The kernel mode filter which tracks changes will lose some changes. Are server crashes common?
Question: I know that FireStreamer is a VTL and writes to disk, but why require that product to archive to disk? Why can't it be an included option for long-term storage to go directly to disk, just like short-term storage does?
Answer: thanks for the feedback... we'll look into that for our next release
Question: Yes....? It works over Internet? If so this raises the security/firewall question. DPM works over random ports unless painfully configured in DCOM.
Answer: We support backup over VPN
Question: Are there plans for DPM to eventually be able to do deduplication across multiple machines/vms?
Answer: On our roadmap.
Question: DirectAccess support in DPM 2010 would be great!
Answer: Appreciate the feedback.
Question: will there be changes for licensing from 2007 to 2010
Answer: The final licensing details have not been finalized yet.
Question: Can the restore of client backup data be redirected to a different PC?
Answer: Yes. Both by admin and by end user too who owns that data :).
Question: Can i update my DPM 2007 SP1 directly to DPM2010 RC (in place upgrade) without any projected loss of data/protection groups, etc?
Answer: yes
Question: in my case, sometimes when there is a lot of data to be backed up, the synchronization will run for a while, and fail, and will report data inconsistency
Answer: You should see big improvements in DPM 2010.
Question: Have you added more statistics about backup, replication times, disk I/O used etc. Any reporting improvements?
Answer: We have a new report that allows you to view your recovery point status based on an "SLA" you want
Question: Are inplace upgrades possible from Beta to RC?
Answer: yes
Question: What is the difference between Synchronization frequency and Recovery Points? I thought every synchronization was a recovery point.
Answer: In applications which have logs/incrementals...you are right. In files, you sync more often but recoveries can only happen from shadow copies (recovery points)
Question: when backing up clients, if there are multiple users on one computer, and i specify DPM to backup My Documents folder. Will it backup My Documents folder for all users automatically?
Answer: Yes
Question: is the data that copied over to DPM a word document remains a word document ....
Answer: yes
Question: If a file is open on the client (like an Outlook .pst), will the backup be taken from shadowcopy so that it can backup the locked file?
Answer: yes
Question: i may have missed this...is client support available for xp, or only windows 7?
Answer: XP, Vista, Win7
Question: Does it works with Direct Access
Answer: On our roadmap. Being considered for DPM 2010.
Question: Is it possible to backup clients over the internet by opening specific ports on a firewall?
Answer: We support backup over VPN
Question: With SCCM, there is the consideration of "Internet Based Management" which includes downloading applications and things from the internal environment. Are there future plans to allow a similar option for the DPM product for "Internet Based Backups" (just for laptop backups)? Perhaps even with a smaller data set if the user is on the internet.
Answer: thanks for the suggestion.We are evaluating options.
Question: It would be useful to have something like FireStreamer integrated into the product. It is too scary for our management to trust in the small company with unpredictable release for support. Perhaps integrate it such that you could treat a .vhd file as a virtual tape file instead of a proprietary format (suggestion for possible future feature)
Answer: Thanks for the feedback. We'll definitely look into this
Question: Will there be any improvements to network utilisation and transfer speed. Historically it has been necessary to throttle backup speed over network to minimise issues with individual agents.
Answer: Lots of reliability improvements on agent communication issues
Question: Is there any kind of local client cache in case a user accidentally deletes or corrupts a file they created while on the road?
Answer: Yes. DPM creates a local snapshot as well...
Question: how stable is DPM2010 RC compared to DPM2007 SP1?
Answer: Ready for prime time production.
Question: does DPM 2010 support disk storage on the same drive as DPM is installed or must it be a separate volume?
Answer: We recommend to keep the install and backup on different disks
Question: in DPM 2007, there is no UI for deleting recovery points, and i need to write powershell scripts. will this change in 2010?
Answer: Not in DPM 2010
Question: With DPM 2007, when we upgraded our SQL Server 2005 instance (the default installed with DPM) from SP2 to SP3 and then Cumulative Update 6 for SP3, it broke Reporting Services. Haven't been able to fix it. Will support for SQL Server 2008 updates be promptly provided for DPM 2010?
Answer: Can you post the details to our newsgroup. This should just wrok
Question: Does the product use previos versions ... IE if I go into the data store can I see the last 14 copies of the file... ie it only copies over changes but I could go back as far as DPM would go ... ie see revisions of files.
Answer: Integrated with both on clients.
Question: My current client requires DMZ backups to be performed across firewalls. Does the dev team plan on using a specific ports for backup communications? Currently some of the communication is random.
Answer: There are two data flows in DPM. Control flow over DCOM which is over a random port picked by DCOM, but this range can be specified using registry keys. DPM cannot specify DCOM to use a particular port. Data flow is over TCP directly and that is on a specific port.
Question: Can I protect a server in a different domain?
Answer: yes
Question: Why the delay on single item recovery with exchange?????
Answer: We have the same support using RSG for item level recovery for Exchange. However E14 allows you to configure "archive" mailbox that saves your deleted items and you can recover from them.
Question: if DPM 2010 is being upgraded from RC to RTM when it's released will that require an agent update on every machine that's being protected? if so, will a reboot of each be required?
Answer: No reboots ;)
Question: I really like the workgroup protection feature too:-)
Answer: Thanks!
Question: any improvement for restoring mailboxes or mailbox level items?
Answer: We have the same support using RSG for item level recovery for Exchange. However E14 allows you to configure "archive" mailbox that saves your deleted items and you can recover from them.
Question: are the cleint backup works with SIS?
Answer: Yes
Question: My question disappeared somehow. I would like to know which version of eseutil.exe should be on DPM server in case of mixed mailbox enviroment (Exchange 2010 and 2007)?
Answer: E2010
Question: Any news on Oracle support (Windows version with VSS support)?
Answer: That's not there in DPM 2010. thanks for the feedback. we'll look into it
Question: can the agent be installed in Server Core?
Answer: Yes.
Question: sql log stay in drive in separate map if volumes out of space on dpm?
Answer: Unclear question. Can you elaborate the scenario?
Question: Woohoo! Backing up workgroup servers!!! Finally! I love you guys! :-) Does it need bi-directional communication with the ports, or can the DPM server make an outbound connection through a firewall to backup a DMZ/Web server?
Answer: bi-directional communication is needed between DPM and workgroup machine. DMZ machine backup is not supported in DPM 2010 (due to security issues around protecting DMZ machines into corpnet DPM server) but is in plans in future.
Question: Is there a special list of supported Tape Libraries? We have an IBM TS3100 with a SAS attached LTO4 drive. We're planning to move from BackupExec to DPM 2010.
Answer: Supported
Question: On a server if you protects the volumes and shares does it dedupe or would all of that data be duplicated?
Answer: We would not dedplicate across different Replica volumes
Question: my questions seems to be missed, is it possible to do a full BareMetalRestore for a CLIENT (not server), by example a business machine that has specific customized software that breaks down and needs to be replaced
Answer: No BareMetal backups for clients.
Question: If I start using DPM 2010 RC in production when it is released how much reconfiguration will be required to upgrade to RTM?
Answer: Seamless
Question: Are you going to make the ppt downloadable please? You could share it here using LM capabilities (aka
Answer: you can print to pdf and that opens a browser which allows you to save the ppt
Question: does DPM truncate SQL logs automatically? it was mentioned that with Exchange it is eseutil that truncated the logs and not DPM itself. So with SQL ...?
Answer: Successful backups truncate logs.
Question: Can the DPM 2010 client coexist with other VSS provider/writers, from other backup solutions, on the same box?
Answer: Yes. Should work without issues on clients.
Question: in dpm 2007, sometimes i assigned too much space for replica volume and recovery point volume. There is no way to adjust this volume other than re-creating the backup in dpm 2007.Can i change the size of recovery point volume and replica volume in dpm 2010?
Answer: You can now shrink the size of the Recovery Point Volume from the DPM console
Question: if DMZ machine backup is not supported, what is recommended way to back up DMZ machines? Run a separate DPM box within the DMZ?
Answer: yes. You would need to have a seperate DPM box within the DMZ.
Question: Will there be big changes between the RC and the RTM releases? I'm haivng trouble understanding that the differences will be
Answer: No changes planned.
Question: Are there also in RC configuration steps for serialization in case of backing up Hyper-V guests on Clustered Shared Volumes? I am running beta for some time now and I am impressed very much. Keep the good work guys!
Answer: the experience will be more seamless. THanks
Question: Regarding dmz backup. Virtualize them on hyper-v and just do host level vm backups. That would work, right?
Answer: Correct
Question: Is it easier to restore Exchange mailboxes in DPM2010?
Answer: We have the same support using RSG for item level recovery for Exchange. However E14 allows you to configure "archive" mailbox that saves your deleted items and you can recover from them.
Question: If upgrading from DPM 2007 to 2010, can it "convert" the numerous individual dynamic disk volumes to the new collocation volumes?
Answer: Will need a stop protection with retain data followed by reprotection with co-location.
Question: Is i possible to protect workgroup clients?
Answer: yes. You can protect workgroup clients using DPM 2010
Question: How come DPM does not support more than one protection group to the same volume?
Answer: Co-Location does this.
Question: So no brick level restore for mailboxes...
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: What about interoperability with running both Windows Server Backup on a box protected by DPM? I'm running the DPM2010 beta, but also want to create WSB backups from time to time.
Answer: No interop issues.
Question: Can I please be added to TAP for DPM 2010? I cant wait for this :)
Answer: The RC will be out in about 3 weeks
Question: Does the product use previos versions ... IE if I go into the data store can I see the last 14 copies of the file... ie it only copies over changes but I could go back as far as DPM would go ... ie see revisions of files.
Answer: Yes & DPM uses VSS to maintain previos versions.
Question: With the non domain member backup can DPM back up services like MOSS?
Answer: For non-domain machines, DPM supports files, sql, exchange, hyper-v.. moss is not supported but will be in future.
Question: How is communication with a workgroup based computer secured?
Answer: NTLM
Question: can I protect one share from the same disk to another pg ?
Answer: One volume one PG
Question: I am assuming you have to remove DPM 2007 or build a new server for this?
Answer: Upgrade in place for W2K8+ and X64\
Question: Does DPM 2010 allow you to split a volume's folders between two Protection Group so that you can configure their backup frequency separately?
Answer: No, a volume can go only to a single protection group
Question: We have 4 TB of data on the same volume and the weekend is not sufficient time for backing 4 TB to tape. I have attempted to create 2 protection groups to the same volume and DPM does not allow for more than one protection group per volume. How come DPM does not support more than one protection group to the same volume?
Answer: Data changes on every volume is tracked by one file system filter and hence the behavior
Question: jason was using 2008 server r2 for the OS to deploy the dpm right?
Answer: Correct
Question: can we see any of the reporting features?
Answer: not sure if Jason's planning to demo them
Question: could the files in DPM be backup in another backup program.... iE could I just backup the datastore with backup exec...
Answer: Yes.
Question: Why using DCOM ?
Answer: DCOM is used for request/response type communication of DPM with the DPM agents. Actual data is transferred directly over TCP/IP.
Question: Will a primary DPM 2010 server be able to backup its own system state?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Does the client backup of large files (like Outlook .pst files) use some sort of remote differential compression or binary delta compression so that frequent backups of large files are more efficient?
Answer: yes, DPM finds the different blocks in the file and transfers only the ones that don't match
Question: If I configure automatic adding of SQl databases, will DPM also automatically remove protection of databse if will be deleted. I noticed in beta that I had to manually remove protection of deleted databases?
Answer: Same behavior. The reason is that if the DB is temporarily down, we dont want to delete it from protection.
Question: Is there going to be a demo of Cluster Share Volumes?
Answer: Not in this webcast.
Question: How much WAN bandwidth would i need to protect a simple file server? Is is as efficient as using DFS-R?
Answer: 512 kbps recommended
Question: is there support for FoxPro DBs ?
Answer: FoxPro DBs are not supported natively.
Question: if someone switches to a new library after PGs are created & backups are on existing library. after switching to new library, does all existing PGs automatically pick up new library without changing each PG?
Answer: There's a Powershell script available to do this for DPM 2007 as well.
Question: Can I back up to disk and long-term tape, and still do secondary protection as well?
Answer: Yes this is do-able
Question: Can DPM2010 run on a Virtual Server?
Answer: Yes it can run inside a Hyper-V VM
Question: Will the 2010 RC be supported by MS if I need to call in for support?
Answer: Newsgroup...directly supported by product group.
Question: What about cluster support, CSV, backup of HA Hyper-V VMs?
Answer: Supported!
Question: What OS will DPM 2010 require to run on? Will it only be Win2k8 R2?
Answer: WS2008 also
Question: Can you protect a DPM server with a DPM server in an untrusted domain?
Answer: No, it would need to be in a trusted domain
Question: Have the reporting functions been enhanced in 2010 relative to 2007?
Answer: There is a new report that has been added in DPM - Recovery Point Status report
Question: Can I request to see a quick reporting demo?
Answer: Not planned for today for time constraints... However you should try out the new Recovery SLA report that we have added. It gives you a good report on backup success that you can mail to your management team
Question: Is SharePoint item level recovery possible from a 2nd DPM2010 server?
Answer: Yes
Question: Just to confirm, i might have missed it, are files from clients de-duped on the DPM server?
Answer: No - files are not deduplicated from different clients
Question: Are the hw requirements of DPM2010 higher than those of DPM2007? (Except being x64 only, of course)
Answer: Nope. Same and depends on scale of data you want to protect.
Question: A limitation of backing up data in DPM 2007 SP1 is that you cant protect the same data (file/folder backup). Is this resolved in DPM 2010? Also you can't select specific files through DPM, will this be resolved?
Answer: Can you please expand on your question?
Question: Is there or will there be a list of supported and or tested tape libraries?
Answer: That's on plan to be published
Question: If I am running DPM as a Hyper-V guest and I am backing up other VM's using host level backups, can I perform item level restores of files stored on the VM's? I know this is not supported in the beta.
Answer: no. This is not allowed since DPM needs hyper-V role enabled for ILR, and hyper-V role cannot be enabled inside a VM.
Question: Do you have on your future DPM roadmap file-based backup functionality in addition to the VSS-based backups so that we could customize backups of specific folders on file servers along with the volume-level backup?
Answer: One volume...one policy
Question: If you choose the option to colocate the data so that it does not create a group for each database does it create on e for all of SQL or one partition per server or one partition per instance?
Answer: Configurable how many DBs go to a single volume. Default 30.
Question: is the express version for SQL2008 support for the DPM2010 Server, or do we need a full SQL2008 license
Answer: Full License which comes free with DPM 2010.
Question: 1. You cant backup the same folders across protection groups. Is this going to change? 2. You can't select specific files to backup only folders, will this change?
Answer: Nope. Remains same.
Question: When backing up straight to Tape, if doing an incremental of full backup it would take the same time AND amount of tape on both cases. Seems like DPM in both cases (incremental and full) took an entire snapshot to backup up. Is this changing with DMP 2010?
Answer: that should not be the case, can you share more details?
Question: What is the minimum bandwith between two site?
Answer: 512 kbps
Question: Does DPM2010 support backing up Threat Management Gateway servers?
Answer: Not in DPM 2010
Question: Will there by any books from Microsoft Press on DPM? Will there be a new MCTS exam on DPM 2010?
Answer: Yes. More details after RTM.
Question: We have Windows clients on air cards. Can these clients connect to DPM when off the network (via Cloud), if so does the DPM server need to be in the DMZ?
Answer: DPM can backup over VPN when clients are not on the corporate network
Question: Supported in VMWare ?
Answer: Supported for DPM and protected servers running in VMWare.
Question: can reports database be backed up and restored? dpm2007 doesn't allow restoring of recovery database.
Answer: No, that's not changed in DPM 2010
Question: Does Dpm2010 RC include any report that will show how long each protected host take to syncronize?
Answer: No. Thanks for the Feedback. we will keep that in mind for future versions
Question: I think that individual SQL databases should be able to be excluded from backup without impacting the auto-protection feature for newly created databases. Is it too late for this to be considered?
Answer: Thanks for the feedback. Will pass it to the feature team for consideration.
Question: Will you be able to disaster recover a DPM2010 server from a second DPM2010 server. How easy is that?
Answer: Yes you can do. The steps are same as it was in V2. You can check the documentation at http://technet.microsoft.com/dpm. You can do it in two ways: 1) Syncing back the data over the wire (can take considerable time if its a WAN and data is huge). 2) Copy the data to tape and ship the tapes to primary site.
Question: How does licensing work for the secondary server? Do you need licenses for each of the servers being protected on the first server, or just one for the DPM server itself?
Answer: You need a single server license for the secondary Dpm server and an enterprise agent license to backup the primary DPM
Question: can you specify a windows when files are NOT backup every 15 minutes... could I only allow coping a certain times of day. Ie 8:Am - 9PM with no copies during 9Pm - 8:Am.
Answer: You can throttle 100% at different time frames
Question: Can a client policy be set to prevent backups over a VPN?
Answer: You can block the traffic on th VPN gateway
Question: Why doesn't DirectAccess "just work" with DPM 2010?
Answer: We are looking into this. Thanks for the feedback
Question: How come DPM doesn’t support a ”real” continuous replication agent as other vendors do
Answer: We remain near continuous and have capabilities to restore applications like SQL to the transaction level.
Question: No need for response...to Jason's example of having a tape library offsite, and not removing the tapes but leaving them in to allow for an easy restore...why tape? If disk was an option, it would work even better!
Answer: Thanks
Question: can long term backups be done to disk based units instead of tape streamers ?
Answer: Thanks for the feedback. We'll look into this in our future releases
Question: Why do we need Hyper-V Role on DPM2010 server to be able to Instance Level Restore if W2008 R2 supports mounting VHD's?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is it possible to get all Q/A after Webcast is finished? There were some really interesting questions but cannot read them all since I am also following Jason :)
Answer: Yes
Question: if i want daily and weekly offsite tapes, can i stop DPM writing to tape on Sat and Sun?
Answer: Yes
Question: so we have 2 sites, if we just want to use eachother other site as the offsite backups for the other and save maybe 3 years, because of the limited replicas available to save, we would only be able to take a backup once ever few days on the "secondary" right? couldnt really have every day, for 3+ years of recovery with the current model right?
Answer: Over a long term we reccomend using tapes. However if you dont have tapes in your environment, then you can use virtual tape libraries that convert disk drives to tape. This way you can store data upto 3 years or more on disk itself.
Question: For the single item recovery when using Hyper-v(backing up the virtual host), does that include single items of Exchange, db etc or only files?
Answer: Only Files for now
Question: Any changes or improvements to the End-User Recovery options? Anything different from the client's perspective?
Answer: Yes, there's a lot more for clients in DPM 2010 including end user recovery. Please do try out our RC
Question: When DPM 2010 will be available as final product ?
Answer: Spring 2010
Question: Will there be an RC release of the Management Pack with the DPM 2010 RC?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Excellent work on DPM! Lots of good work going on...GREAT webcast!
Answer: Thanks!
Question: Any plan to support vcb (VMware Data Recovery in vsphere) to support backup of Vmware host
Answer: Not in the plan
Question: Is pricing for server and clients going to be close to todays prices?
Answer: Will be public at RTM. Don't expect too many changes.
Question: Today you don’t support to use USB disk, will that be the same for USB 3.0
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: DPM 2007 is unable to backup its own system state and a secondary DPM server is required. Will a primary DPM 2010 server be able to backup its own system state?
Answer: use "Set-DPMGlobalProperty –AllowLocalDataProtection" for protecting SystemState of DPM by itself
Question: Any possibility of apple time machine support added in the furture?
Answer: Not on the plan immediately
Question: Just a note re Forefront TMG support. May be worth clarifying that it is not supported as an explicit workload, however that the whole server can be backed up and could effectively restore TMG. My experience is that the SQL logs are not worth backing up though.
Answer: Thanks for sharing!
Question: can a tape be marked as free without the need of manually delete the recovery points on it by powershell?
Answer: Same behavior as DPM 2007.
Question: What do you mean Yes, I asked Why? :-) - question about Hyper-V role requirement
Answer: We use the Hyper-V VHD driver for ILR.
Question: Is Microsoft service support DPM 2010Beta in production because of CVS ?
Answer: Newsgroup...directly supported by product group.
Question: Very good additions and fixes from DPM 2007.
Answer: thanks!
Question: Excellet webcast and great job DPM2010! will wait for RC release. Thanks!
Answer: Thanks!
Question: Is a secondary DPM node a necessity.We have 2 data centre rooms and another smaller off site we would aim to store our DPM server in.
Answer: secondary DPM is not a neccesity. Its optional in case you want to prevent against disasters on the DPM Server itself.
Question: How come you don’t provide a self-service tool for Exchange and SharePoint?
Answer: Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: for disk backup storage - are 7200 RPM SAS and SATA drives acceptable to meet performance needs?
Answer: Depends on the load you are backing up... generally yes
Question: Great presentation Jason! Great responses to the questions. Much appreciated. Keep on the good work.
Answer: Thanks!
Question: What kind of Deduplication technology does DPM use - is it the build in SIS feature in Windows or? What is the % save for this?
Answer: Block level tracking of changes. Block level changes on recovery points.
Question: He just said we won't be able to take advantage of colocation if we upgrade from 2007 to 2010. I thought if I unprotect then reprotect, it would work. Which is true?
Answer: Seamless upgrade for W2K8+ and X64
Question: Who is answering the questions by the way?
Answer: Product Group
Question: great to see that dpm 2010 can do so much that was missing in 2007. thanks
Answer: Thanks!
Question: Great presentation. Was just about to start DPM for our Exchange environment (6TB) with 2007 but will wait for 2010 now. Fantastic job.
Answer: Look forward to hearing from you
Question: If I upgrade from dpm2007 to dpm2010. Can I use co-location for new protection groups created after the upgrade?
Answer: You can stop protection and start it again
Question: can you inplace upgrade your DPM 2010 beta to 2010 RC ot RTM later when RC is available
Answer: Yes
Question: will we be able to backup to tape 5 days a week and exclude weekends?
Answer: Yes :)
Question: We are interested in doing a bare-metal recovery of 2008 R2 -- is that possible in DPM 2010
Answer: Yes.
Question: Excellent up lift - really repairs / corrects a lot of DPM 2007 flaws.
Answer: thanks!
Question: This is crazy, I can't believe that I'm going to be able to implement this many features. I've been backing up Outlook with hugh archive PST files and this is going to take this backup to hardly nothing. Thanks, Rob
Answer: Thanks!
Question: NEED TAPE POOLS
Answer: Can you please a short write on the DPM Newsgroups the reason for the necessity ?
Question: If I upgrade from dpm2007 to dpm2010. Can I use co-location for new protection groups created after the upgrade?
Answer: Stop protection with retain data. Followed by reprotect with colocation turned on.
Question: Very Exited for the new release. Great job DPM team.
Answer: Thanks!
Question: Back to reporting, our SOX auditors have been very underwhelmed by what we have available to us. Is that one report the only new report?
Answer: Currently yes. We will like to hear back if you need any specific reports. Or even looking at any changes in the current ones. Recovery Point Status report is designed to help you track the SLA of each of the dat sources as per your SLA requirements (you may be having more backups scheduled than required to meet SLA).
Question: What was the problem with the co-location and running out of space that was corrected by going to non-colocated?
Answer: Lack of co-location needed too many volumes which put the system under stress!
Question: will there be an option in the windows shutdown dialog to perform a sync before shutdown, similar to 'install updates and shutdown'?
Answer: Interesting feedback. Not integrated today.
Question: to clarify - does DPM 2010 now support scheduling tape backup to only occur on certain days of the week ie not weekends?
Answer: Yes. :)
Question: I have been unable to back up 2008 R2 system state servers using the 2010 beta.
Answer: Please report all issues on the newsgroup.
Question: is migration material available yet fro 2007 to 2010 on new hardware?
Answer: Not yet... will be available in our release timeframe
Question: thanks. Great session..
Answer: Thanks for attending
Question: When protecting a Hyper-V VM from the host perspective, you mentioned being able to do an item-level restore of items within the VM. Does this include System State for the VM?
Answer: No only files. If system state backup was dumped to a drive inside the guest OS then you can recover that through Item level recovery.
Question: Upgrade patth from DPM 2007 SP1 on Windows 2003 x64 to DPM 2010 on Windows 2008 R2?
Answer: Will need an OS upgrade in between
Question: Is there a list of partner Cloud backup vendors?
Answer: You can backup DPM data to Iron Mountain
Question: When you selected Hyper-v you didn’t have a “auto” as you did in SQL so you can backup all VM’s even if they doesn’t are there today. I also sav that you didn’t have any “auto” when you selected protected servers when creating a secondary DPM for DR. It would be good so I don’t have to single elect everything. It looked like you have the option to select all when selecting clients.
Answer: Auto protecting VMs can be acheived through scripts. The scripts are posted on DPM blog. blogs.technet.com/dpm.
Question: I see the benefits of colocation but don't understand why it failed during the demo for the one attempt when switching to no-colocated worked
Answer: Co-location pre-allocates for a larger no. of clients. Jason had a single client being backed up but not enough space to pre-allocate for more
Question: Hi we are interested in users in dPM, so we can admins just doing restores and setups allocated to admins just as an example. is DPM has user accounts eg.admins, operators, users
Answer: DPM 2010 provided SQL EUR where the SQL admin can restore the databases that they own without involving the DPm Admin
Question: Can you backup SQL Azure ?
Answer: SQL Azure is a service provided by Microsoft. What do you mean by backup of Sql Azure using DPM?
Question: When will the next version of DPM be out? 2013?
Answer: No dates and plans yet.
Question: I missed the beginning of the web cast, can I download this webcast right now if possible, LINK ...
Answer: Yes. It will be available.
Question: How come you don't talk about the DPM to Azure feature that was in the DPM beta documentation?
Answer: It remains in limited Beta.
Question: Does DPM2010 autoprotect new DAGS/SGs (I see MOSS and SQL but no Exchange)?
Answer: Can be automated via Powershell. We didnt hear too much of this from customers.
Question: can DPM 2010 backup the DMZ servers or WORKGROUP server, since we can't do that in DPM 2007 and customer are not very happy about that
Answer: Workgroups supported.
Question: Has the SRT tool for WinSrv 2003 BMR been enhanced with DPM 2010?
Answer: No significant changes. Any feedback?
Question: if set in scom maintenance time for servers dpm shift the backups for the servers?
Answer: No, DPM uses the schedules you have specified for protection in the protecction gruop creation
Question: When adding a new DPM servers, will I be able to manage it in the same console?
Answer: Centralized console is Not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: Really like the workgroup support -- now we can backup our Edge Transport Servers --- Well done!
Answer: Thanks!
Question: is that workgroup backup NEW in DPM 2010, or you can also do it in 2007 SP
Answer: new in 2010
Question: In a BMR scenario like making a BMR back-up of all the hyper-v nodes. Is the BMR capable to bring back a node in case of node failure? And will the Hyper-V cluster be fully functional after restore?
Answer: The entire cluster would not be operational after doing a BMR of individual nodes.
Question: did i miss the answer to my question
Answer: can you ask again please?
Question: Backup SQL Azure, That the client is in controle of restore time instead of Microsoft ?
Answer: This is not supported in DPM 2010
Question: need tape pools - so that certain tapes or tape types can be dedicated to certain protection groups in dpm. So that a small gropu that would only require a lto2 does not suck up an expensive lto4 tape that was intended for a larger group
Answer: Thanks for the feedback.
Question: is there any improvement on data compression in DPM2010? or will it be the same as in dpm2007?
Answer: Same as DPM 2010
Question: great webcast looking forward to RC release. Thanks and good day.
Answer: Thanks!
Question: in our organisation we are interested in allocating admin right s to certain people and otheres as operators, so only few people make changes but others look after things on every day bases, i.e restores.
Answer: Role Based Delegation is not in DPM 2010. On our roadmap.
Question: will this webcast be made available online for download/streaming? If so, when?
Answer: Yes. The webcast will be available for download soon. We'll keep you notified
Question: Can you handout complete Q/A for future review please :)
Answer: Soon
Question: Any support for new features of Active Directory on 2k8R2 (i.e. recycle bin and AD Snapshots) in DPM 2010?
Answer: Not in the Plan for RTM. In the roadmap
Question: When will the recording of the webcast be made available?
Answer: We'll notify you once its available
Question: Why can’t I select a full backup of the client disk? If you have a good Deduplication it wouldn’t matter if I backup everything. This is something you have in Windows Home server
Answer: DPM 2010 doesn't deduplicate across clients
Question: when will be able to download the q and a's ?
Answer: In a few days
Question: we have hyper v which 2007 can nott backup, if we install the beta 2010 can we upgrade to rc versin when it comes out
Answer: Yes

Webcast: Get Ready for Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 Release

2010-01-12T17:30:00.001+01:00

The DPM 2010 beta is available since September, the Release Candidate is almost finished.

All about the new Release candidate in the webcast of January 14. Below the invitation by Jason Buffington |Senior Technical Product Manager – System Center.

Please join us this Thursday, January 14 at 9:00 AM Pacific US Time (18:00 CET) to see what is coming in the Release Candidate We will demonstrate the pre-RC software that our early adopters have been running in production. We’ll demonstrate the new Windows client protection capabilities, the new SQL/SharePoint/Exchange protection and recovery features, as well as the enhanced Disaster Recovery scenario. We’ll also update you on our auto-healing/auto-scaling features, as well as a few surprises that weren’t in the beta. Come join us to see what is coming in DPM 2010.

TechNet Webcast: Get Ready for Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 Release Candidate (Level 300)

Start Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010 9:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Duration: 90 Minutes

Audience(s): IT Generalist

Click Here to Register for this week’s webcast

DPM 2010: Client Based Protection

2009-11-25T16:34:00.000+01:00

During Teched 2009 in Berlin we where able to see and learn more on the next release of DPM. One of the features that Microsoft has put a lot of effort in is the client based protection.
In the 2007 release of DPM you could also protect clients, but that actually only works for “well connected” workstations. Machines switched off (or taken out of the network) will fail and flutter the DPM console with error messages.
The client based protection in DPM 2010 has been completely redesigned. With DPM 2010 clients are supported within the network, through VPN and even offline. Clients on the network or connected through VPN store their data on the DPM server. Restores can be done from the DPM server, using previous version in Explorer or the Office plug-in (image 10).
Clients offline, in an airplane for example, are also protected using a local back-up cache directory on their system. These clients can even do a restore when their on the road. When these clients connects to the network, the local cache is written to the DPM server. (local snapshots are not available on XP clients)
Offline clients will not generate loads of errors on the DPM server (like in DPM 2007) Only when a client has not connected to the DPM server for 14 days (default value\image 6) a warning will be displayed.

First step is to install the agent on the client, this process is a little different then for a server . You can use SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) to install the agents, or do a manual installation. When the Windows Firewall is running you will need the tool SetDPMserver.exe to make the correct exclusions. You do not have to attach the agents in the DPM console like with other manual installations, this will be done automaticity when you create the protection group
Next step is to create a new protection group, the image below shows the option to create a server or a client based protection group. In this case we select the client bases protection group.

Image 1: Create new protection group

Now it’s time to select the members, the clients you will protected.

Image 2: Select protection group members

The DPM Administrator can select which data on the clients should be protected. This can be done on the Specify inclusions and Exclusions page. This is a rule base selection on volumes or folders, with the option include or exclude. The DPM Administrator can also allow/deny the user to add additional folders to protect. Under File type exclusions specify the file types to exclude using file extensions.

Image 3: Select files to include or exclude

Protecting client computers can consume a lot of storage on your DPM server. Therefore you can limit the amount of disks available per protected client

Image 5: Specify storage space

In the screen below you specify the protection details. How long should data be kept on the DPM server, How often should data be replicated from the client to the DPM server, how many days can a client be disconnected before an alert is generated,

Image 6: Specify retention time

The DPM administrative console shows the protection status (from an administrative point of view)

Image 7: Protection group status

On the Client computer a new icon is available in the notification area. When activated with the mouse this icon shows the DPM synchronization status. The following information is showed when you click on the icon; the Summary tab allows users to check their protection status. How many files are protected, what is the current synchronization status, when was the last synchronization, when is the next.

Image 8: User GUI; protection status

The Protection items tab; When the Administrator allows it, the users can add additional directories to protect

Image 9: User GUI; specify additional directories

With DPM 2010 allows users to recover data items from client computers. Restores can be done directly from explorer, with the option Restore previous version.

Image 10: Previous version restore

The list will include files that are saved on the DPM server as well as local recovery points,

Image 11: Available previous versions

Specifications:

Support up-to a 1000 clients per DPM server
Support for Windows XP sp2*, Windows Vista and Windows 7
DPM supports the following VPN protocols (PPTP,SSTP,L2TP)

*The end-user restore feature is not enabled on Windows XP

Conclusion: Client protection in DPM 2010 gives administrators and users a lot of new options to protect their client data. to be continued

Enable End-User Recover in DPM fails

2009-11-25T13:00:00.001+01:00

When you want to enable End-User Recovery on a DPM servers run Windows 2008, you will probably run into an error

To enable End_user recovery you should click on the recovery tab and then under actions click on “Configure end-user recovery” and click Configure Active Directory"

This will result in an error: “Active Directory could not be configured because the Active Directory domain could not be found. Make sure that the domain name is properly constructed. The following example shows a properly constructed domain name: city.corp.company.com”

The reason is the way the security of Windows 2008 is configured

The workaround is to use the DPMADSchemaExtension.exe tool, located in C:\program files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\End User Recovery. In order to run this tool logon to a domain controller map to the directory above and run DPMADSchemaExtension.exe.

Enter Data Protection Manager Computer Name –> Enter here the DPM server name : Note: this is not the FQDN name of the server, but just the server name.
Enter Data Protection Manager Server domain name –> Enter here your domain name. Note: This will be the FQDN domain name so if your domain is yourdomain.local enter yourdomain.local
Enter Protected Computer Domain Name –> This field can be left blank if the DPM server is in the same domain as the Domain Controller that owns the Schema master role.
Click OK on the next to Information screens
On the DPM server open the DPM 2007 Administrative Console, select the recovery tab and then under actions click on “Configure end-user recovery” Notice that the configure active directory button is grayed out and that you can place a check mark in the “Enable end-user recovery” check mark button.
You will get a warning telling you that you must wait for a synchronization to take place before the setting change takes effect. Click OK

The information in this post is taken from the source below (Keith Hill). I was only able to find the result in the Google cache therefore I recreated this document.

Source: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:sOz_ZPThi7AJ:blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/06/29/dpm-how-to-enable-end-user-recovery-using-windows-2008-server.aspx+dpm+end+user+recovery+schema&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nl

Disaster recovery using P2V and DPM

2009-11-17T16:30:00.001+01:00

One of the interactive sessions on Teched Berlin was about Virtualization and Data Protection Manager. The disaster recovery section of the session had very interesting point of view on using P2V migration and DPM as a disaster recovery scenario.

A fully virtualized environment will make a disaster recovery scenario a lot easier. You just backup/snap-shot the virtual machines (VHD files and configuration) and when your host dies you just restore them to another Hyper-V host and your back in business.

What about when you have still some physical machines in your environment?

You can use a Bare Metal restore (BMR), but there are some implications with it.

First of all you need to have sufficient physical hardware for this. This might not be a problem when you’re planning for a single server failure. This is most likely not an option when you’re planning for a larger (Datacenter) outage. In this case you should have a lot of server on stock just waiting for a failure to happen.
The second downside is that for a Bare Metal Restore you need to have, as much as possible, identical hardware. For older servers this might be challenging.
Last point is the recovery time needed when doing a BMR. BMR’s can be time consuming, time in which your users will experience a service interruption.

So what alternatives do we have?

Assuming you have also a virtual environment available,

Preparation Steps

Make a Physical to Virtual Migration (P2V) of the machine you want to protect
Leave this guest turned off on the Hyper-V machine you migrated it to
Make daily data and system state backups of the physical server

You now have an offline virtual machine, with the correct drivers stand-by.

Recovery Steps

When the physical server fails you can activate the offline Virtual machine using the following steps

When the physical server is down; Start the Virtual –copy- of the machine
Restore the latest data using data protection manager to this virtual machine.

Notes:

Because of the use of the p2v tool, all correct drivers are on the virtual machine
The computer account of the virtual machine could be expired, in this case you need to reset the computer account
Make sure you know the local admin account and password of the machine
The start of the Virtual Machine could created as a SCOM recovery task
The restore of the data with DPM can be scripted with Powershell
You need to keep the system state of the physical machine, in case you want to go back to the physical server.

Based on the presentation Data Protection Manager and virtualization better together presentation during Tech-ed Berlin 2009.

Checks Mike’s post for more info an some interesting questions

DPM tip of the day (1)

2009-11-15T17:06:00.000+01:00

If your planning a new DPM 2007 implementation these days make sure you go for the x64 version on Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2.
Doing this your are ready for a in place upgrade to the next version DPM 2010. Data Protection manager 2010 will only come in a 64 bits version running on Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2.
The agents will still be available for 32 bits systems :-)

DPM 2010: Release date

2009-11-12T22:42:00.001+01:00

Nothing official yet, but during Teched in Berlin, we got estimated release date for The Release candidate and the RTM

Data Protection Manager 2007 Hotfix Package KB976542

2009-11-07T18:13:00.001+01:00

New hotfix for DPM 2007 available. More info here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=74ac7461-dbfe-4bc1-85a2-4d2948f30e42

DPM 2010: Exchange 2010 DAG Support

2009-11-04T15:51:00.001+01:00

For C2ict, the company I work for, we have implemented the DPM 2010 beta. To get familiar with all the new features of DPM 2010, but more importantly because DPM 2010 supports the Exchange 2010 Database Availability Group). C2ict joined the TAP for Exchange 2010 and therefore also requires a backup solution for Exchange 2010. During the TAP we used a special build of DPM2007 that was able to protected the Exchange 2010 database, unfortunately this build was not DAG aware.
A good reason to switch to the DPM 2010 beta.

In the picture below you see how to select the Exchange 2010 databases. When creating a new protection group, you will find the name of your DAG on the select Group members TAB. Here you select the database to protect.

At this point you should have copied the ESEUTIL and the supporting DLL from your Exchange server to the DPM server. Just as in DPM 2007, we can use the DPM server to run eseutil data integrity checks. For Exchange 2010 DAG it is recommenced to do this only for the log files. (Need to get more familiar with Exchange 2010 to figure out why)

When protecting multiple copies of the same database (within a DAG), you should make a Full backup of only one copy of the database and a copy backup of the other database. This because a Full backup of one copy of the database will also clean-up the logs for the other copies.

These are the Exchange 2010 specific steps for creating a protection group.

More info:
Exchange Server 2010 Backup and Restore SDK
Changes to Backup and Restore in Exchange 2010
Single Item Recovery in Exchange Server 2010

Windows 2008 (R2) system state fails due to . . .

2009-11-02T18:01:00.001+01:00

I have been troubleshooting a issue with a failing System State backup on 2 Windows 2008 R2 servers. These two servers both run Exchange 2010.
The DAG backup with DPM 2010 works perfect, but the system State keeps failing with this error in the application log.
--------------------------------------------
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Backup
Date:          2-11-2009 17:36:18
Event ID:      521
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      <server_name>
Description:
Backup started at '2-11-2009 16:36:13' failed as Volume Shadow copy operation failed for backup volumes with following error code '2155348129'. Please rerun backup once issue is resolved.
--------------------------------------------

According to some Forum post the error code '2155348129' may be caused by the incorrect Active volume. (When a OEM Partition is the active partition instant of the system partition)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/d5daada2-b78b-4935-bd9e-80726c26c4a8/

But this is not the case here.

A closer look in the application log shows a second error for the Forefront Vss writter:
--------------------------------------------
Log Name:      Application
Source:        FSCVSSWriter
Date:          2-11-2009 17:36:17
Event ID:      11003
Task Category: (11)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      <server_name>
Description:
Microsoft Forefront Protection VSS Writer failed when preparing for backup. Writer instance: FSCVSSWriter Error code: 0x00000000
Event Xml:
--------------------------------------------

Workaround:
I found a workaround With a little help of this post

-> Disable the Forefront Protection VSS Writer in the service Panel

In the same post is also an issue with the SQL VSS\Hyper-V writer mentioned as cause.

DPM 2010 and OCS front-end protection

2009-10-30T14:50:00.001+01:00

Tom Pacyk wrote a post in 3 parts on protecting and recovering the OCS front-end server role with DPM 2010

Quote: “The goal of this series is to demonstrate how to recover your OCS Front-End’s RTC database in the event of a disaster where your database or disk hosting the RTC database has become corrupted. Or maybe you’ve recovered a server’s installation and configuration, but now need to recover the user information. I’m going to do this in 3 different parts: backing up, destroying, recovering.”

Your OCS Front-End and DPM 2010 Part 1- Backup
Your OCS Front-End and DPM 2010 Part 2- Destruction
Your OCS Front-End and DPM 2010 Part 3- Recovery

Link to Tom’s Blog: http://www.confusedamused.com/

SharePoint protection failed

2009-10-29T13:42:00.001+01:00

DPM can be used to protected Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. DPM used the SharePoint VSS writer for this Protection. More details in the post SharePoint Protection with DPM

To provide the DPMRA agent with the necessary permissions to protect SharePoint, you need to run the ConfigureSharepoint.exe tool. This utility configures the WSS Writer service and any associated services with the correct credentials required to access the farm for backup and recovery purposes.

This works like a charm in most environments. However in some highly secured domains you can run in to issues. When a Group Policy overwrites the required permissions, the protection will fail.

In this case you will see errors like below.

Error on the DPM Server:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recovery point creation jobs for Shared Services Provider SSP_Database_server_name\Instance\database_name on SharePoint front-end_server_name have been failing. The number of failed recovery point creation jobs = 4.
If the datasource protected is SharePoint, then click on the Error Details to view the list of databases for which recovery point creation failed. (ID 3114)

An unexpected error occurred during job execution. (ID 104 Details: The server process could not be started because the configured identity is incorrect. Check the username and password (0x8000401A))
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Error in the application log of the WFE (SharePoint Front-end):

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    DCOM
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    10004
Date:        29-10-2009
Time:        10:05:04
User:        N/A
Computer:    <WFE server>
Description: DCOM got error "Logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer. " and was unable to logon <domain>\<configuration account> in order to run the server:
{E95EF0B1-D0E3-45D9-B699-8B37F068CF25}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This can be related to Log on as a batch job permission that should be assigned to the account you specified when running the ConfigureSharePoint.exe command.

This right is set by the ConfigureSharepoint.exe –EnableSharePointProtection command. Make sure this right is not overwiten by your security (Group) policies.

SharePoint Protection with DPM

2009-10-26T16:52:00.001+01:00

I’m not the first one to blog about this. But I’m just very impressed with the great documentation available on the Microsoft weblog about protecting and recovering SharePoint (MOSS)

I Just had to share it with you:
DPM and SharePoint - Part 1 - A love/love relationship
DPM and SharePoint - Part 2 - How does DPM protect SharePoint data?
DPM and SharePoint - Part 3 - How does DPM restore SharePoint data?
DPM and SharePoint - Part 4 - Why do I get this error?

DPM 2010: Jason Buffington on Protecting Exchange 2010

2009-10-24T13:38:00.001+02:00

Jason talks with Leslie Kitz (also in the System Center team) about how DPM 2010 adds to what Exchange 2010 does for data protection and availability. After that a quick demo!
Check it out on Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog

Thanks Marnix

Tape library inventory using Powershell

2009-10-07T12:13:00.001+02:00

The command to start a fast or detailed inventory using Powershell is not to difficult, the trick is to get the correct name for the tape library.
In the example below we use an additional Powershell command to read the Library name in to a variable.

First we need to list all tape libraries attached to the DPM server. When you have a Tape library attached, you might see the drive listed as well. Note the order the tape libraries are listed.
(replace dpm01 with the name of your DPM server)

PS > get-dpmlibrary -DPMServerName dpm01

Name                                     Drives                   Slots          I/E ports
----                                     ------                   -----               ---------
Stand-alone Drive: I...                       1                    0                 0          #0
Library: Library1                             2                      23                1          #1

Now we read the library details in to the variable $DPMlib
(replace dpm01 with the name of your DPM server)

$dpmlib = get-dpmlibrary -DPMServerName dpm01

Using the information collected with the first command we now can start the inventory. The number added to the $DPMlib variable is the order number in which the library is listed, start counting with 0. In this example, the number 1.

Fast inventory:

PS > Start-DPMLibraryInventory -DpmLibrary $dpmlib[1]

JobCategory                        Status                             HasCompleted
-----------                             ------                                  ------------
FastInventory                      Scheduled                            False

Detailed inventory:

PS > Start-DPMLibraryInventory -DetailedInventory -DpmLibrary $dpmlib[1]

JobCategory                        Status                                  HasCompleted
-----------                             ------                                  ------------
DetailedInventory                Scheduled                               False

When you use it in a script it will look like this

$dpmlib = get-dpmlibrary -DPMServerName dpm01
Start-DPMLibraryInventory -DpmLibrary $dpmlib[1]

Migrate protection data

2009-10-06T17:46:00.001+02:00

There are some cases you might need to migrate your protection data to a new disk. DPM Sp1is shipped with a Powershell script that allows you to migrate your protection data to new storage.
For this you need to follow these steps:

First get a list of disks attached to your DPM server; pay attention to the order the disks are listed

Start the DPM Management Shell

PS> get-dpmdisk –dpmservername DPM01

Name          Status            NtDiskId Total Capaci Unallocated Type
                                                   ty        Space
----          ------            -------- ------------ ------------ ----
COMPAQ MSA... Healthy               3       732 GB       582 GB Basic          #0
COMPAQ MSA... Healthy               4       732 GB       582 GB Basic          #1
VMware Vir... Healthy               1        50 GB        28 GB Basic               #2
VMware Vir... Healthy                2         5 GB         0 GB Basic                 #3

Read the disk order in to a variable ($disk)

PS > $disk = Get-DPMDisk -DPMServername dpm01

Now you can use the script MigrateDatasourceDataFromDPM.ps1. First find the disk number of the source disk, these numbers are not displayed when you use the get-dpmdisk command. Do not get fooled by the NTdiskID, you do not need those. You just need to count the disks listed starting with 0 (see red numbers in example). Now find the number for the destination disk using the same trick.

In the example below we like to migrate the data from disk 2 to disk 1

PS > ./MigrateDatasourceDataFromDPM.ps1 -DPMServerName dpm01 -Source $disk[2] -Destination $disk[1]

More options and examples can be found on Technet

DPM 2010: Some Friday afternoon screen shots

2009-10-02T16:38:00.001+02:00

Just preformed the first DPM 2010 installation in a small test environment. First of all I need to say I’m very pleased with the documentation that is shipped the beta. The installation documents not only describes the basic installation of DPM 2010 on a clean system, but also various upgrade scenarios from DPM 2007. Beside the setup guide, there is also documentation for protecting Hyper-v, SharePoint item-Level recovery, SQL Server End User Recovery, client computer protection and many more.

The Operation System requirements for the DPM server have changed. Only the x64 versions of Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 are supported. Windows 2003 is no longer supported.
SQL 2008 is the supported database, you can either use a remote SQL database or use the local instance delivered with the DPM installation

New is the option to Install DPM on a domain controller. This requires some additional configuration (mostly creating security groups and users).

I used Windows 2008 R2 (x64) for this installation. Using the R2 version of Windows 2008 makes the installation easier because Powershell 2.0 (one of the prerequisites) is already included in the Operation system. The installation is straight forward, one additional reboot is required when Windows Single Instance store (SiS) is not installed.

The DPM Administrator console starts when the installation is completed. A first look at the console shows a lot of similarity with the previous version, no big interface changes like in each new release of Microsoft office.

But during a better look you will definitely shows find the changes. First of all the agent installation now includes an option to attach manual installed agents (behind firewall). You needed Powershell for this in the previous version.

When creating a new protection group or adding a member to an excising protection group you will notice two changes. First is the auto grow option for the protection volume. With this option the replica and recovery volume automatically grow when more space is required for protection. Second is the consistency check option. The GUI now includes an option to automatically start a consistency check when a replica is inconsistent. Both options will reduce the number of failed recovery point creations.

Last for this Friday afternoon is the Recover point status report. This is a direct link (on the protection tab) to a report that shows the recovery point status of the selected data sources.

There is a lot more to tell … To be continued

DPM 2010 Poll: The results

2009-10-01T12:54:00.000+02:00

Together with the release of DPM 2010 beta also the the Poll “What should DPM v3 include ?” ended. More coincidence than planning, anyhow the results are here!
First I like to thank everyone how took the time to vote, 121 votes were counted, which is more then I expected.

The results are show below, you will count more then 121 votes because one voter could select multiple options.

Exchange single mail restore: DPM2007 restores the full mailbox store only
Improved Tape backup support: Allow to configure in more detail when backups run.
Support for None Microsoft OS/applications: In the 2007 release only applications that have a VSS writer available are supported.
Protect none (trusted) domain servers: A machine in a none trusted domain or in a workgroup cannot be directly protected by DMP2007
Management console on another computer: The graphical interface can only be installed on the DPM2007 server itself.
Better SAN integration: Does the SAN integration need improvement
Improved documentation: Is the documentation sufficient or should v3 include more/better documentation
USB/Firewire storage support: There is no native support for backups to USB/Firewire disk.
More standard reports: Are the reports of the current DPM version sufficient or should v3 include more reports

The big ‘winner’ in this poll is the Exchange single mail box restore. I can quite understand why this point score so ‘good’. According to my memory the initial marketing state something like “Single mail item restore without brick level backup” Which is technically correct, but does involve restore the full mailbox database and after that using Powershell to get the correct mail items.
Another imported ‘winner’ is Improve tape support. This is also something I hear in the field, people struggle with configuring tape backup the way it reflex their business needs.

In the next weeks we will find out which of these suggestions are included in DPM 2010

Again thank you for taking the time to vote! Now it time to test the new DPM 2010 beta!!

DPM 2010 Beta is available now

2009-09-30T08:44:00.001+02:00

Download page: https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=840&DownloadID=22070

DPM 2010 (V3) Public beta

2009-09-17T08:44:00.001+02:00

Microsoft has announced that the public beta for the next version of DPM will be released this month.

An exact day is not available yet! Jason Buffington will present a webcast to fill you in on all the new features and stuff.

When: Thursday, October 08, 2009 9:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Web cast Event Overview:

This month, Microsoft released the public beta for Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010. Before you download the software, attend this webcast to learn about Data Protection Manager 2010 and the product features that are causing excitement in the IT community. We deploy a DPM 2010 server and walk you through most of the new features in DPM 2010 and the enhancements that were made to the Data Protection Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) solution, which is protecting Windows-based application servers and file servers today.

New release for KB970867

2009-09-16T15:12:00.001+02:00

Scug.be reports that Microsoft has released a new version of KB970867. More details here and on the Microsoft site

Back-up Exchange 2010

2009-09-11T11:07:00.001+02:00

The current version of DPM is not Exchange 2010 aware*. Therefore you can not directly backup Exchange 2010 mailboxes with DPM2007.
For now (as a work around) there is a plug-in available for the Windows 2008 server backup feature that allows you to backup the Exchange 2010 databases. This plug-in is called WSBExchange.exe and is standard installed with Exchange 2010. The plug-in runs as a service (Microsoft Exchange Server Extension for Windows Server Backup), which can be used by Windows server Backup.

This is a basic way to project

Backups are VSS-based only. You cannot make streaming ESE backups
Backups are taken on volume level, To backup the database and log files you need to protect the full volume that contains these files.
Only full backups can be taken
Log file truncation will occur after a successful full backup.

First you configured Windows 2008 Server Backup locally on the mailbox server.
Then you can configure DPM to protect the backup files of Windows Server Backup on the mailbox server.

This is maybe not the most efficient way to protect your Exchange, but at least it’s a work around till DPM is Exchange 2010 aware.

More info on protecting Exchange 2010 with Windows server backup:

Using Windows Server Backup to Back Up and Restore Exchange Data http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876851(EXCHG.140).aspx
Perform a Backup of Exchange Using Windows Server Backup http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876854(EXCHG.140).aspx
Restore a Backup of Exchange Using Windows Server Backup: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876864(EXCHG.140).aspx

*For Exchange 2010 TAP customers there is a special version of DPM2007 available that is Exchange 2010 aware. But this version does not support any other data then Exchange 2010

DPM 2007 Configuration Analyzer

2009-09-05T15:11:00.001+02:00

DPM Configuration Analyzer is a diagnostic tool that verifies configuration settings on your Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007.

The DPM Configuration Analyzer (DPMCA) is a diagnostic tool you can use to evaluate important configuration settings on DPM 2007 servers. The tool scans hardware and software configurations of the DPM servers you specify, evaluates them against a set of predefined rules, and provides you with best practice suggestions that can make your DPM experience more optimal.

More on: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=54b4bb57-d6e3-4c1e-a889-a24cfa18fcd4&displaylang=en#Instructions

Script to resolve: Free tape threshold reached

2009-09-01T14:06:00.001+02:00

When you have a tape library for which you change the tapes on a daily or weekly basis you properly run in to the following warning: Free tape threshold reached.

The number of free tapes in the Tape Library ,name> is less than or equals the threshold value of #. You must add tape to the library and it as free in order to prevent future backups from failing (ID 3305)

You receive this warning even when there are enough expired tapes available in the tape library. You get this warning because DPM checks the number of free tapes, in spite of the fact that DPM can write to expired tapes as well.

The advised resolution in DPM is manually mark all expired tapes as free. However a real IT-admin does not like manual labor. Therefore we created a PowerShell script that checks for expired tapes and marks them free.
If you run the script manually it looks like this:

Powershell script:

param ([string] $DPMServerName)
add-PSSnapin Microsoft.DataProtectionManager.PowerShell
if(("-?","-help") -contains $args[0])
{
    Write-Host "Description: This script marks all expired tapes as free"
    Write-Host "Usage: MarkExpiredTapesAsFree.ps1 [-DPMServerName] <Name of the DPM server>"
    exit 0
}
if (!$DPMServerName)
{
    $DPMServerName = Read-Host "DPM server name"
    if (!$DPMServerName)
    {
        Write-Error "Dpm server name not specified."
        exit 1
    }
}
if (!(Connect-DPMServer $DPMServerName))
{
    Write-Error "Failed to connect To DPM server $DPMServerName"
    exit 1
}
$libraryList = Get-DPMLibrary -DPMServerName $DPMServerName
foreach ($library in $libraryList)
{
    $expiredTapeList = @(Get-Tape -DPMLibrary $library |
    ? {$_ -is [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.LibraryManagement.ArchiveMedia] -and

$_.DatasetState -eq "Recyclable"})
    if ($expiredTapeList.Length -gt 0)
    {
        Write-Host "Marking $($expiredTapeList.Length) tape(s) as free in $($library.UserFriendlyName)."
        Set-Tape -Tape $expiredTapeList -Free
        $expiredTapeList | select Location
    }

}

We have scheduled this script to run daily using the Windows task scheduler. Expired tapes are now mark as free on a daily basis

In order to schedule a Powershell command you need to create a cmd that calls the Powershell script. The command file is listed below

command file:

powershell -command "& 'd:\ps_scripts\MarkExpiredTapesAsFree.ps1' <servername>"

Thanks to Mischa for his help with the script.

Elearning

2009-08-29T23:59:00.001+02:00

I told you in my post yesterday that there is no Elearning for DPM available yet. Again thing can change quickly. Microsoft just has released the Elearning track for DPM.

This is a collection of 6 two-hour eLearning modules that include hands-on labs, much of the same courseware as our newly announced classroom-based DPM course, and is built for to prepare you for the DPM Certification exam.

There are six modules –each approximately two-hours long

More on: http://blogs.technet.com/jbuff/archive/2009/08/28/announcing-dpm-elearning-is-now-

Exam 70-658 – Configuring System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

2009-08-28T21:02:00.001+02:00

Since a couple of weeks you can take the Microsoft DPM2007 Exam. Happy with this option, I scheduled the exam for this morning.
When preparing for the exam, I wasn’t sure what to expect. There are no books, CBT or test exams available yet.
And I have to say the exam was a bit more difficult than I first expected. I had to read all the questions carefully..
But the result was good. PASS!!!

Without the books and all that stuff there is still a lot of information available to prepare for the exam.

Below a list of what I used.

The preparation guide
Technet documentation
Secondary protection webcast
Sharepoint webcast
Hyper-V webcast
MS exchange Blog
The DPM Poweshell CMd help for some basic commands
A DPM test environment
and of course my blog :-)

There is also a Microsoft learning track available: Course 50213A. (I did not had the opportunity to take a look at this yet.)

Beside all of this I think it really helps if you have some good experience with setting up, configuring and not the less troubleshooting DPM.

-Good luck!!!, to those of you that will take the test as well-
And let me know what you think of the exam?

DPM v3 Q&A

2009-08-26T10:18:00.001+02:00

i Found the Q&A text from the First look on Webcast on DPM v3 posted on the Internet.

You can find them on: http://snefi.freeblog.hu/files/dpm.txt

Change the location of the system state backup file

2009-08-21T16:58:00.001+02:00

As you might know, DPM stores the system state of a machine first locally on the protected machine before copying the data to the DPM server. DPM select the most suitable disk for the local copy of the system state when you run the backup for the first time. You might want to change this location when available disk space changes or when you add additional disk to your system.
This can be done by editing the configuration file on the protected computer.

(Technet)
The backup file of system state is created at %systemdrive%\DPM_SYSTEM_STATE.

To change the location of the system state backup file

1.On the protected computer, open PSDatasourceConfig.xml in an XML or text editor. PSDatasourceConfig.xml is typically located at install path\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Datasources.

2.Change the <FilesToProtect> value from %systemdrive% to the desired location.

3.Save the file.

4.On the DPM server, if there is a protection group protecting the system state of the protected computer in step 1, run a consistency check.

5.The consistency check will fail and generate an alert. Perform the recommended actions in the alert as follows:

a.In the alert details, click the Modify protection group link, and then step through the wizard.

b.Perform a consistency check

-------------------------------------------------------------------

When you have issues with backing up the system state of the machine you should always check the logs on the local machine.

-Application log
-C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup

FI: Backup started at ‘’ failed with following error code '2155348165' ( There was a failure in preparing the backup image of one of the volumes in the backup set. ). Please rerun backup once issue is resolved.

Heavy Weight Consistency Check using PowerShell

2009-08-20T15:00:00.000+02:00

David Allen has posted a interesting piece on performing consistency checks checks using Powershell. He also describes the difference between a standard and a Heavy Weight consistent check.

Read it all: http://www.scdpmonline.org/heavy-weight-consistency-check-using-powershell.aspx

Backing Up DPM by Using a Secondary DPM Server

2009-08-19T11:48:00.002+02:00

In addition to my Prepare for a DPM server disaster post that describes how to protect the DPM server database locally on disk or tape. Now a link to the TechNet article that describes how to protect the DPM server by using a second server http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795680.aspx

Prepare for a DPM server disaster

2009-08-17T17:48:00.001+02:00

The DPM SQL database (DPMDB) is the most crucial part of your DPM installation. The database contains all your protection group information and tape\disk catalogs.
When this database gets corrupted (believe me this can happen), you will loss all this configuration data.

When you have a single DPM server implementation, you can protect this database in two ways.

Make a backup\Dump to disk: dpmbackup command
Make a backup to tape: Create a protection group to include the DPM database

I would recommend to use both techniques to protect your DPM databases.The disk solution allows you to recover the DPM quickly when it gets corrupted. The backup to tape allows you to recover the configuration when the full DPM server has become unavailable.

Make a DPM database backup to disk

Use the command DPMbackup –db to create a dump of the database to the folder %program files%\Microsoft Data Protection manager\DPM\Volumes\ShadowCopy\Database Backups.
When you schedule this command to run frequently,it is recommended to save multiple versions of the database. With the DPMbackup –db command you cannot specify a alternative location for the database backup. Therefore it is recommended to copy your database dump to an alternative location. This will prevent you from overwriting a good working copy with a more recent corrupt version.

Restore a DPM database from disk

Before you start:

Secure the current DPMDB.BAK database backup, by renaming it: %program files%\\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\ShadowCopy\Database Backups
Next, create a backup of the running database in DPM with the following command: dpmbackup –DB Also rename this DPMDB.BAK file to DPBDB_before_restore.BAK

Restore database:

Use DPMSync to attach the database to DPM.

DPMSync –RestoreDB –DBLoc (location and name of the database secured in step 1 of before you start) When this database is also corrupt you can use a previous saved version of the database
DPMSync takes the DPM service offline and attaches the backed up database to SQL Server.

Run the command DpmSync –sync

This will sync the database with the available recovery points

Start DPM 2007 Administrator Console. You now have some protection errors to resolve.
Secure now the working DPM DB running: DPMBACKUP –DB from the DPM server

Make a DPM database backup to disk

Enable local protection (When using the local SQL installation):

Starting with DPM 2007 SP1 it is possible to backup the local files of the DPM server.
To enable it you need a powershell command (DPM Management Shell): Set-DPMGlobalProperty –AllowLocalDataProtection $true

Protect SQL database:

Create a new protection group
Select the local DPM server and select under SQL the DPMDB
Use long-term protection using tape
Specify the protection schedule

Recover a DPM database from disk
This is a not the most pleasant solution, since you have to uninstall and reinstall DPM2007. You should only use this when the recovery from disk is not possible

create a backup of the running database in DPM with the following command: dpmbackup –DB ,rename this DPMDB.BAK file to DPBDB_before_restore.BAK
Place the tapes with the most recent DPM database backup
Uninstall Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 through the Add/Remove Programs applet in Control Panel.

Important

Remember to select Retain disk-based recovery points.
Restart the computer.
Delete the DPM database using SQL Server Management Studio.
Install DPM 2007.
Restart the computer
Install the same level of Service pack and latest hotfixes
Restart the server again
Secure the now clean Database

Run the command dpmbackup –DB

Open the Libraries tab on the Management tab of DPM Administrator Console.
Click Rescan on the Actions pane. Go to Updating Tape Library Information for more information on using the Rescan option.
Select the library from the list and click Inventory libraries… and perform a detailed inventory from the Actions pane.
Select the imported tape from the list and click Recatalog imported tape on the Actions pane.

Do this for all tapes on which the DPM database resides

Open the Recovery tab from DPM Administrator Console.
Select the DPMDB by expanding the External Tapes node.
Click Recover on the Actions pane.
Restore the database files to a separate folder
All DPM and SQL services must be stopped.
Rename the following Database files .\DPMDB:

a) DPMDB2007RTM.mdf to DPMDB2007RTM.mdf.old
b) DPMDB2007RTM_log.ldf to DPMDB2007RTM_log.ldf.old

Copy the restored database files to the location .\DPMDB
Start first the SQL services, next start the DPM services
When all services are started again:Run the command DpmSync –sync

This will sync the database with the available recovery points

Start the DPM administrative console

If this works > DPM should be up, you now have some protection errors to resolve
If this not work try step 15 to 23 for with the two other versions of the database

***Secure the now working database Run the command dpmbackup –DB

DPM Vodcasts

2009-08-04T14:42:00.000+02:00

On the Microsoft Technet Edge site are 8 videos available on various DPM 2007 sp1 subjects.

How to protect SharePoint with DPM 2007 sp1
DPM 2007 SP1 -- how to do individual item restore for Exchange
DPM 2007 SP1 – Licensing
SharePoint Backup/Recovery with Michael Noel
DPM 2007 SP1 -- Protecting Hyper-V
DPM 2007 SP1 -- What's new for protecting SharePoint
Data Protection Manager with Jason Buffington
DPM 2007 SP1 -- How does DPM really work

More on: http://edge.technet.com/tags/DPM/

DPM June QFE KB970867

2009-07-31T20:52:00.001+02:00

The in June released hotfix rollup package for System Center Data Protection KB970867 fixes 9 issues.

Issue 1
If you enable library sharing, you cannot delete a protection group, and you receive the following error message.
Issue 2
The SharePoint backup process fails if DPM 2007 cannot back up a content database. If you install this update, the SharePoint backup process will finish. However, an alert will be raised if DPM 2007 cannot back up a content database.
Issue 3
DPM 2007 jobs randomly fail. In the administrator console, you see error code 0x800706BA if you check the detailed information about the failed job.
Issue 4
DPM 2007 does not delete directories that are no longer being protected from the replica volume.
Issue 5
After you install this update rollup, you can configure DPM 2007 to perform VSS copy backup.
Issue 6
Reconciling a VSS shadow copy causes the DPM 2007 service to crash.
Issue 7
The DPM 2007 service crashes if a tape backup job is canceled during the CheckConcurrencyBlock operation.
Issue 8
The Pruneshadowcopies.ps1 script cannot delete expired recovery points.
Issue 9
If a parent backup job of a SharePoint farm fails, but the child backup succeeds, the DPM 2007 service crashes.

After the installation of this rollup you do need to update your agents. You do not need to rebooted the protected servers.

More info and download link at Microsoft

Fast inventory fails

2009-07-31T13:10:00.001+02:00

Found that the fast inventory of the Tape library in DPM can fail or show the wrong results in some cases. According to a newsgroup post this can be caused (in certain types of libraries) by the press of a cleaning tape.

The post reports this for IBM 35XX series and HP 1/8 tape libraries. We have seen the same issue on the Dell TL2000 tape library which is actually an IBM Totalstorage 3573 Tape library.

The workaround is to remove the cleaning tape from the library.

The newsgroup threat also describes a fix setting a registry key. (I have not tried this yet)

The rekey fix is to handle some unexpected behavior of tape library. The issue is when there is cleaner media present in some library element (slot/drive/transport ) the IOCTL_CHANGER_GET_ELEMENT_STATUS for that particular elment returns with ELEMENT_STATUS_EXCEPT set in CHANGER_ELEMENT_STATUS.Flags and CHANGER_ELEMENT_STATUS.ExceptionCode is set to ERROR_UNHANDLED_ERROR. This is unexpected behavior as per WHQL and as a result of this you will see Fast Inventory failing with "Hardware Issue". The workaround is added in DPM 2007 SP1 and we have seen this issue with only IBM 35XX series and HP 1/8 tape library

Thanks to Sachin

Link to full newsgroup threat

Poll: What should DPM v3 include?

2009-07-27T16:33:00.002+02:00

Microsoft is working on the next version of DPM. The First public beta will properly available at the end of the summer or in the fall?

Some of the new features that DPM v3 will include were shown during a recent webcast. But what should DPM v3 include according to you?

You can select multiple items from the list

Improved Tape backup support: Allow to configure in more detail when backups run, exclude certain dates from the schedule, specify which tapes should be used when.
Support for None Microsoft OS/applications: In the 2007 release only applications that have a VSS writer available are supported. Other applications are supported using a flat file dump/backup.
Protect none (trusted) domain servers: A machine in a none trusted domain or in a workgroup cannot be directly protected by DMP2007
Management console on another computer: The graphical interface can only be installed on the DPM2007 server itself. The PowerShell management shell can be installed on a remote management station as well.
More standard repots: Are the reports of the current DPM version sufficient or should v3 include more reports
Improved documentation: Is the documentation sufficient or should v3 include more/better documentation
Better SAN integration: Does the SAN integration need improvement
Exchange single mail restore: DPM2007 restores the full mailbox store, with Powershell you select the mailbox to recover.
USB/Firewire storage support: There is no native support for backups to USB/Firewire disk. A workaround that works is installing a virtual tape drive

Other suggestions, drop me a mail!

May I have your Votes please!!!

This is just a informational poll, I do not have any influence on what will be in the next version of DPM. But you never know :-)

Newly Published Content for Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

2009-07-23T16:46:00.000+02:00

The title says it all; All newly post Technet articles on DPM:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc511259.aspx

The DPMRA service terminated with service-specific error 10048

2009-07-22T15:49:00.000+02:00

After maintenance on one of the Exchange CAS/HUB servers the DPM server could not contact the DPM agent anymore.

The Error Code:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          17-7-2009 14:36:34
Event ID:      7024
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      servername.domain.local
Description:
The DPMRA service terminated with service-specific error 10048 (0x2740).

This article on Microsoft site tells that this could be caused by another service running on the ports used by DPMRA service. (port 5718 and 5719)

To find which service this is you can use the command netstat –oan, this returns the ports and the corresponding PID. With the command tasklist /svc you find the service involved.

In this case the service MSExchangeFDS (Microsoft Exchange File Distribution) was running on both ports.

We used the following work around:

Stop the Microsoft Exchange File Distribution service
Set the DPMRA service from manual to automatically
Start the DPMRA service
Start the Microsoft Exchange File Distribution service

This work around fixed the issue for us.

…
Thanks to Karl

Exchange 2007 Restore with DPM and PowerShell

2009-07-20T14:00:00.000+02:00

Set-up Overview

This post shows how to recover a mailbox using DPM and Powershell commands

For the examples in this post we use the following set-up

Exchange 2007 CCR cluster: EXc01
Storage group to recover from: SG01
Mailbox to recover from: MBXStore01
User to recover: Matthijs
User to recover mail to: Manager
Disk for recovery storage group: E:\
Name recovery storage group: Recovery Storage Group

High-level steps for a recovery

Create recovery storage group;
Restore data to Recovery Storage Group;
Copy/merge mail to target mailbox;
Remove Recovery Storage Group.

Restore to recovery Storage Group

Task description	Example
If you do not have an existing Recovery Storage Group, create one by using the new-storagegroup cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell. Logon to the Active node of the Exchange cluster Start the exchange management shell Create a Recovery Storage Group (RSG) by running the following Exchange Management Shell cmdlet: [PS] *new-storagegroup -Server [servername] -LogFolderPath [log file path] -Name “Recovery Storage Group” -SystemFolderPath [database directory] Recovery*	*new-storagegroup -Server exc01 -LogFolderPath E:\RSG -Name “Recovery Storage Group” -SystemFolderPath E:\RSG -Recovery*
Add a recovery database to the RSG by running the following Exchange Management Shell cmdlet: [PS] new-mailboxdatabase -mailboxdatabasetorecover [database_name] -storagegroup [Server_name\RSG_name] -edbfilepath [database_path] This creates a mailbox on exchangeserver1\RSG\DB11. The .edb file name must be the same as the .edb file name for the mailbox you are recovering.	*new-mailboxdatabase -mailboxdatabasetorecover exc01\SG01\MBXStore01 -storagegroup "exc01\Recovery Storage Group" -edbfilepath E:\RSG\MBXStore01.edb*
Logon to the DPM server start DPM administrative console Select the recovery TAB
On the left side of the window select the Exchange cluster for which you want to perform a system state restore Expand the domain name, expand the cluster name Expand All protected data Exchange data Select the storagegroup that contains the mailbox to restore
In the middle of the window (lower screen) First select the mailbox store and select the users mailbox (Uper screen)select the data and additionally the time of the mailbox to restore. In the right side of the click recover
The recovery wizard start Check the selected settings and click next In the Select recover type window, select Recover the mailbox to an Exchange Server and click Next
In the specify destination type: Exchange server: [Exchange mailbox cluster] EXC01 Storage group name: Recovery Storage Group Database name: [RSG_databasename] mbxstore01 In the specify recovery options window, leave all settings default and click Next In the summary window, check all settings and click recover In the Recover status window, check the status and click close

Restore mailbox content to other mailbox

Task description	Example
Logon to the exchange cluster again Open the Exchange management Shell
Restore the content of a mailbox to another mailbox in a special folder Start by running the following Exchange Management Shell cmdlet: restore-mailbox -RSGMailbox [mailbox in RSG] -rsgdatabase [RSG_Name\Mailbox_database_name] –baditemlimit 10-id [target_mailbox] -Targetfolder [target_folder] *Use the display name	restore-mailbox -RSGMailbox "Matthijs" -rsgdatabase "Recovery storage group\MBXstore01" –baditemlimit 10 -id "manager” -Targetfolder "restore van Matthijs 20090704"
The confirmation question will be displayed. Check the action described and Click Y	Confirm Are you sure you want to perform this action? Recovering mailbox content from the mailbox 'Vreeken, Matthijs' in the recovery database 'EXC01\Recovery Storage
The mailbox restore is in progress
The results are displayed
In outlook there is a new folder created with the content of the restored mailbox

Restore lost mail to original mail box merge

Task description	Example
Logon to the exchange cluster again Open the Exchange management Shell
Restore the content of a mailbox to another mailbox in a special folder Start by running the following Exchange Management Shell cmdlet: restore-mailbox -id [mailbox in RSG] -rsgdatabase [RSG_Name\Mailbox_database_name] –baditemlimit 10 Use the display name	restore-mailbox -id "’matthijs" -rsgdatabase "Recovery storage group\MBXstore01" -baditemlimit 10
The confirmation question will be displayed. Check the action described and Click Y
The mail restore is in progress
The results are displayed
In outlook there is a new folder created with the content of the restored mailbox

Other useful restore command:

Restore only emails received/send between specify data:
Restore-mailbox _RSGMailbox <Mailbox_name_In_RSG> –RSGDatabase <RSG_Name>\<Mailbox_DatabaseName> –ID <Mailbox_Name_To_restore> –TargetFolder <Folder_Name> –StartDate <Start_date> –EndDate <EndDate>

Remove recovery storage group

Task description	Example
Logon to the exchange cluster again Open the Exchange management Shell
Dismount the database with the command: dismount-database -identity "[server_name\RSG_Name\Mailbox_database_name]”	dismount-database -identity "exc01\Recovery Storage Group\MBXstore01"
The confirmation question will be displayed. Check the action described and Click Y
Remove the mailbox from the Recovery Storage Group with the command: Remove-mailboxdatabase –identity <server_name\RSG_name\Database_name>	Remove-mailboxdatabase -identity "exc01\recovery storage group\MBXstore01"
The confirmation question will be displayed. Check the action described and Click Y
The move the Recovery Storage group with the following command: remove-storagegroup –identity <server_name\RSG_name>	remove-storagegroup –identity “exc01\recovery storage group”
The confirmation question will be displayed. Check the action described and Click Y
The recovery storage group has been removed from exchange.
Now remove the files from the Recovery Storage Group directory	E:\RSG\.

Downloaded PowerShell Scripts won’t run

2009-07-17T22:52:00.000+02:00

When you download PowerShell scripts from the internet you might find that they do not work on your local (DPM) Server.
The reason is PowerShell is configured to run in the most secure mode by default. This mode is the "Restricted" execution policy, in which PowerShell operates as an interactive shell only.

Error message:

The file C:\downloaded_script.ps1 cannot be loaded. The execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see "Get-Help about_signing" for more details

You can change this behavior with Set-ExecutionPolicy command in PowerShell

Example:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Allsigned (Runs only signed scripts)
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted (Runs all scripts signed and unsigned)

More options and information at: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SigningPowerShellScripts.aspx

Regional Settings

2009-07-15T17:57:00.001+02:00

I Found some unexpected behavior on a DPM server that is configured with an English OS, but with the Dutch regional settings.

When using the command: set-dpmGlobalproperty –DPMserverName <servername> -TapewritePeriodRatio 0.2 (this command configures the DPM settings for marking tapes ready for offsite storage)

This command works and the settings seem to be update.

When you after that request the active settings with the command: get-dpmGlobalproperty –DPMserverName <servername> TapewritePeriodRatio. You get the value back in the Dutch regional format, which is 0,2. (see above)

The workaround is to configure the server with US regional settings at least for the decimal symbol and digit grouping symbol

Thanks to Peer for his help on this.

Reporting does not work with DPM 2007 on Server 2008 x64

2009-07-10T16:06:00.001+02:00

When Running Windows Server 2008 x64 with DPM 2007 x64 you can ‘run’ into the following issue. When clicking on the Reporting Tab the following message appears:

DPM could not connect to SQL Server Reporting Services server because of IIS connectivity issues.

On the computer on which the DPM database was created, restart the World Wide Web Publishing Service. On the Administrative Tools menu, select Services. Right-click World Wide Web Publishing Service, and then click Start.

ID: 3013

The solution is within IIS:

1. In IIS Manager, open the Sites folder, and then open the folder of the
Web site that contains the report server virtual directory.
2. Select the report server virtual directory .
3. In the IIS area, open Handler mappings.

4. In the Actions pane, click Edit Feature Permissions.
5. Click Script.
6. Click OK

DPM v3

2009-07-03T15:37:00.007+02:00

Microsoft has released a First look on Webcast on DPM v3.
The most important features and changes are:

Exchange

Support for Exchange 14

Improve restore granularity

SQL
Protect entire instances and auto discover new databases
End User Recovery for SQL administrators

SharePoint
No recovery farm required with Office 14 (because Office 14 does not require one)
Auto protect of new content databases

Hyper-V
Item restore from VHD disks (when protection the host )
Support for live migrationRestore to alternative host

Active Directory
AD will be a selectable data source (in DPM2007 you need to select the system state)

Bare metal restore
Windows 2003 will still use the DPM System recovery tool
Windows 2008 will use image recovery

New data sources
Microsoft Dynamics (will be made available for DPM2007 as well)
Microsoft SAP (will be made available for DPM2007 as well)

Laptop
Microsoft will put a lot of effort in the Laptop protection opions with DPM v3
Backup over VPN
Support for up to 1000 clients per DPM server
Unique user data only, OS is not included multiple times
End user recovery from local and DPM data

DPM v3 Scalability
100 servers, or 1000 laptops or 2000 databases
80 TB of live data

Other facts
DPM chain support (3 levels instant of 2 levels)
64 bits only server side (still 32 bits clients)
Windows 2008 or better server OS for DPM server
More granularity in creating recovery points (time and how often)
Public beta for DPM v3 late summer or fall

Overall: The main focus will be on Microsoft based products, using the product build-in backup and recovery technology. V3 has special attention for Client support. Link to the webcast http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032412466

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Volume Sizing Tool

2009-06-30T14:42:00.005+02:00

.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=445bc0cd-fc93-480d-98f0-3a5fb05d18d0&DisplayLang=en#filelist

I/O device errors during tape backup

2009-06-30T14:34:00.002+02:00

My experience is that tape drive errors are common with many backup applications. DPM is no difference here. According to posts I found most issues are caused due to incorrect behavior either by tape drive firmware or device driver.

But I found also some issues where DPM fails to span to multiple tapes. This could be solved by creating a registry key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent] "BufferQueueSize"=dword:00000001" This will ensure that backup will span to next available whenever any IO device error beyond of 30 GB on tape occurs. There by avoiding backup failures

Exchange mailbox of user from other domain not showing under recoverable item

2009-06-29T12:41:00.003+02:00

I run in to a rather strange issue with restoring mailboxes for a customer DPM implementation.
They have an Exchange 2007 SP1 CCR cluster on Windows 2008 SP2 in domain A.

The Exchange cluster is protected with a DPM SP1 server on Windows 2008 SP2 also in domain A. The Exchange server hosts mailboxes from users in many different domains but in the same forest.
The creation of recovery points works without errors and the log files are cleared as expected.
The issue is with recovering a mailbox. When selecting the recovery tab in the DPM administrative console, and select the Exchange cluster, then the storage group and then expand the mailbox store. Here under recoverable item I would expect to see all mailboxes in this mailbox store but instant we see only some of the mailboxes. Infect only the mailboxes of users located in the same domain as the Exchange server (domain A).Recovering the mailboxes is not a problem. When doing a recovery of the mailbox store to the recovery storage group all mailboxes in that mailbox store can be recovered this includes the mailboxes of users in other domains.

UPDATE: There is a hotfix rollup package for System Center Data Protection available that fixes this and 13 other issues. The hotfix number KB 968579 (thanks to Nagesh [MSFT] for pointing me in the right direction).
This also brings me to another important link: Recommended hotfixes for Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007 systems.

Managing DPM 2007 in Large Enterprise

2009-06-24T15:53:00.003+02:00

Microsoft has a new webcast available on managing DPM in an enterprise environment. This webcast highlights the options and tools available for managing a large number of DPM servers.

Command-line control via Powershell

All tasks available in the GUI can also be done by Powershell;
Additionally you can make changes to a large number of DPM server at ones;
Find replication errors and start consistency checks;
Modify disk allocationStart Tape inventory.

Scripting within DPM

This can be used to perform Pre and post backup jobs;
Useful if you need to dump a database before starting the backup.

Monitoring via Operations Manager

With the available management pack from Microsoft you can monitor multiple DPM servers from a single interface.

Bocase Centralized manager for DPM.

This is a third party tool for managing a large number of DPM servers;
Provides web interface to multiple DPM servers from a single pane of glass;
Adds role based access for DPM;
Monitor Storage pools and tape libraries.

Link to webcast: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032412447&culture=en-US

Restore single files form System drive on Windows 2008

2009-06-22T16:21:00.005+02:00

DPM allows you to do a System state back-up of Windows 2008 server. Actually a full backup of the c-drive is performed for the Windows 2008. But how can you restore other files than the system state from this backup. There is no option for this in the DPM administrative console. But there is a work around for this. The trick is that Windows 2008 uses a VHD file for the backup

First you should perform a system state restore for the specific machine using DPM. Specify a directory where you like to place the restore data (This could be any machine with a DPM agent) ***The most recent copy of the system state backup is already located on the target server in the directory WindowsImageBackup***
Now you need to install the tool VHDmount from the virtual server 2005 sp1 setup. You can download this file for free from the Microsoft site.
On your management station or DPM server, start the virtual server set-up and choose a custom installation. Select vhdmount and deselect all other options.

Wait till the set-up is completed.

Copy the ##name###.vhd file from the system state restore directory to the server you just installed the vhdmount tool on.

You now can mount the backup with the command vhdmount /m /f ##name##.vhd

The vdh file is now mounted to an available drive letter and you can browse the files and directories

The command vhdmount /u ##name##.vhd, dismounts the VHD file again.