From July 2008 in Orlando -- this was the first of three breakout sessions on DPM2007.

This session covers:

- Installing the DPM Server

- Configuring the DPM Server disk and tape

- Deploying DPM agents from the administration console

- Setting up Data Protection

- Recovering Data

Click here to watch - Technical Introduction of DPM2007

1.       We have seen issues under Secondary DPM server when production server node is expanded in DPM UI, you do not see any datasources enumerated. As a result of this, you cannot add secondary protection for any of the datasources of that production server. This could happen due to one of the following reasons<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

a.       One of the Protection Groups in Primary DPM has a special character in its name (like &, %, >. < etc) or one of the protected members of Primary DPM has special characters.

b.      DPM Writer is not started in Primary DPM server

c.       DPM Agent (by name DPMRA) crashed on Primary DPM server or Production server. If this is the case, you will find eventlog entries in respective servers.

d.      Secondary DPM server could not enumerate datasources from production server.  Run the powershell script under section “Check-ProductionServer” in the attached file on Secondary DPM Server. This will tell you whether Secondary DPM can enumerate datasources on production server or not. Steps to run this script

                                                               i.      Copy the contents under the section “Check-ProductionServer” in the attached file to a file named as “Check-ProductionServer.ps1”.

                                                             ii.      Run the powershell script “Check-ProductionServer.ps1” on a powershell window on Secondary DPM Server

e.      You had manually installed x64 DPM agent on top of the DPM 20007 x64 Primary DPM. Normally, this is blocked. You cannot manually install DPM agent on a DPM server. But, we have a known issue on X64 version which unblocks this scenario. If this is the case, you will see an entry for “Microsoft System Center DPM Protection Agent” in Add/Remove programs.

General solutions for this problem:

                                 i.            Make sure that Protection Groups or Protected members in Primary DPM don’t have any special characters in their names. Rename all such Protection Groups in Primary DPM and retry secondary protection

                               ii.            Make sure that DPM Writer is enabled and started/running on the Primary DPM server

                              iii.            Make sure that DPMRA service hasn’t crashed on Primary DPM server or production server while adding secondary protection through Secondary DPM server.

                             iv.            Disable and Enable protection for the production server which exhibits symptom 4 above.

                               v.            Uninstall the “Microsoft System Center DPM Protection Agent” from Primary DPM server through Add/Remove programs. Run the batch script under section “UpdatePrimaryDPM” in the attached file on Primary DPM server. Steps to run this script.

-          Copy the script  under the section “UpdatePrimaryDPM” in the attached file to a new batch file called UpdatePrimaryDPM.cmd

-          Run UpdatePrimaryDPM.cmd <DPM Intall Path>

E.g.: UpdatePrimaryDPM.cmd “C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM”

2.       You get prerequisite not installed error while adding datasources for secondary protection. This might happen if the production server is a domain controller. Please contact Microsoft support if this is the case.

Thanks

Madhan S

While I was away on vacation last week, Microsoft finally released the DPM 2007 Rollup packages to Microsoft Downloads. (I blame Jason Buffington; I'm sure he waited until I was out of office.) There are  both x86 and x64 packages; both require you to download three separate files.

In addition to various bug fixes, this rollup (also known as a "feature pack") provides the following new functionality:

• Official support for protecting Windows Server 2008 servers (and supported applications, such as Exchange Server 2007, running on Windows 2008), including protecting the system state.
• You get support for backing up clustered Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 environments. Before, the cluster itself was not seen as a cluster by DPM, and depending on your configuration you may have needed to do some funky scripting.
• Better tape handling. You can now share tape libraries between multiple DPM servers, reducing the cost of long-term tape retention and allowing better utilization of high-end tape libraries. You can also put multiple protection groups on a single tape; DPM 2007 RTM would start a new tape as it began writing each protection group, even if the previous tape was not fully used. This could get expensive.

I haven't yet been able to confirm whether the cleaning tape bug Tim noted has been fixed in this update, but I suspect not.

Applying this update is a four-step process:

1. Install the main DPM update (DataProtectionManager2007-KB949779.exe)on your DPM servers.
2. Install the SQL Server update (SqlPrep-KB949779.msp) on the machine hosting the SQL Server database for DPM. In a default install, this is the same machine that is your DPM server.
3. Update the agents on your protected servers to version 2.0.8107.0. You can push them out through the console or manually run the .msp update package on your protected machines (using any supported push mechanism). You will need to restart the protected machines for the new agent version to take effect.
4. Update the DPM Management Shell update (DPMManagementShell2007-KB949779.msp) on all of your DPM management stations (including the DPM servers themselves).

Although the official instructions give the update steps in the previous order, I have run all three udpates on my lab DPM servers before updating the agents on my protected servers, and as long as Microsoft doesn't say that's not supported, that's the way I'd recommend doing it -- that way, all of your PowerShell tasks are using the updates even if you don't have all the protection agents pushed out yet.

With DPM 2007 Feature Pack  (KB949779), we have added support for media co-location. With this feature, you can achieve better tape utilization by co-locating data from multiple protection groups with similar retention range. This feature is disabled by default. You can use following PowerShell commands to enable and disable tape co-location.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Enable Tape co-location:

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DpmServer <DPM Server Name> -OptimizeTapeUsage $true

Disable Tape co-location:

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DpmServer <DPM Server Name> -OptimizeTapeUsage $false

You can verify the status of tape co-location feature (Enabled/Disabled) from Library Management tab of DPMUI.

The Feature Pack can be downloaded from following locations.

x86:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e9e1fe35-b175-40a8-8378-2f306ccc9e28&DisplayLang=en

x64:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ad5cd1a2-9b87-4a2c-90a2-9dbaf1024310&DisplayLang=en

Madhan S