DPM 2010: Release date

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

DPM 2010: Jason Buffington on Protecting Exchange 2010

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

DPM 2010: Some Friday afternoon screen shots

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

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 (V3) Public beta

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.

Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032426727&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

DPM v3 Q&A

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

Poll: What should DPM v3 include?

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 :-)

DPM v3

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