SharePoint with multiple WFE servers

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

SharePoint 2007 recovery point fails after Password change

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

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

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

SharePoint protection failed

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

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?

Protecting SharePoint

MVP Michael Noel talks about the challenges of SharePoint backup and recovery, including item level backup and recovery using DPM 2007.

Youtube link