SCDPM Online

With the Beta release of DPM 2012, there is a new installation option for a DPM Central Console.  This is very exciting as finally it is now possible to mange multiple DPM servers from one location, and what is also great is that the new central console utilises System Center Operations Manager as the management platform!! The steps below outline how to install the server side and client side components to enable the DPM central console.  The server side components need to be installed first on the Operations Manager server before the client components can work.  The DPM management pack will ... read more

With DPM2012 Beta recently becoming publicly available, I thought I would share my installation experiences.  There are few components to DPM2012 that can be installed, but in this post I wil focus on installing just the DPM server. After downloading the media, run "setup.exe" from the DPM2012_BETA_FullBuild folder.   When the spash screen opens, click Data Protection Manager under the Install heading.  Usually I would suggest running the pre-requisite checker first, however this does not work in this Beta build. As usual with MS products, the screen you'll be presented with is the... read more

Further to my previous post on the DPM 2010 management pack, http://www.scdpmonline.org/dpm-2010-management-pack.aspx, I have noticed another configuration issue that I would urge you to override. Within the DPM2010 MP is a discovery rule that discovers DPM data after the DPM server itself has been discovered.  This discovery rule runs a VBS script to collect the data and by default it has a timeout value of 3 hours!!!!  This is way too long!!!! Most of the time the discovery script runs very quickly and if it doesn't, there is a problem on the DPM server.  I would recommend overriding... read more

One of the new features introduced in DPM 2010 was client protection.  This is a really nice feature that enables your desktop and laptop computers to be protected.  Client protection works in a very similar way to server protection where one full backup is taken and changes are tracked using the VSS service which makes it very efficient when performing backups. What I particularly like about client protection though is it's administration as you can allow the end-user to determine what they want to back-up or you can control centrally what is backed up. The one issue with DPM client backup ... read more

The Microsoft DPM 2010 management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 was released a couple of months ago now and itt is available on this download page, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=32077d99-618f-43d0-843d-4ba4f8019f84.  It is also now available on the web service catalogue. So what's new and improved in this MP?  Well, there have been a number of significant improvements that have been detailed by Jonathan Almquist at... read more

Hi All, A rollup hotfix package has been released for DPM 2010 that addresses a number of issues that many customers were experiencing.  This KB is available for download now. Detailed Information:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2250444 Download Link:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=f399fbfa-5c8b-4eb6-bda2-ea997745919a&displaylang=en Here is a list of the issues that the hotfix rollup package will resolve: You cannot protect the Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) on a secondary DPM 2010 server. You are prompted to restart a client... read more

Hello Again, A query I often here is, "how can I accurately monitor DPM?", and this is actually more difficult than it sounds.  If you only have one DPM server, it is quite easy to monitor the state of your backups directly but if you have hundreds of protected data sources across multiple DPM servers, you'll one one central place to monitor them.  The logical place to perform this monitoring is in Operations Manager, especially as there is a DPM management pack for monitoring DPM, however there are a couple problems with this. 1.  The Microsoft DPM management pack... read more

We all know that one of the biggest frustrations of DPM is that each DPM server has to be managed individually as there is no central console.  This also includes reporting and this can be an even bigger frustration as if you have more than one DPM server, you can’t get a single report displaying the status of the protection being provided for a given period. Although this single report isn’t available in DPM, it is possible to create it in Operations Manager.  If you have Operations Manager in your environment and you are using the DPM management pack to monitor and manage your DPM servers... read more

Hi All, Jason Buffington has posted five new DPM 2010 data sheets on his All Backed Up blog, http://blogs.technet.com/b/jbuff/archive/2010/06/21/dpm-2010-datasheets.aspx. These data sheets cover how to protect SQL, Exchange, SharePoint and Clients as well as providing a DPM 2010 overview.  I recommend you take a look! Product Overview of DPM 2010 How to Protect Microsoft SQL Server with DPM 2010 How to Protect Microsoft Exchange with DPM 2010 How to Protect Microsoft SharePoint with DPM 2010 How to Protect Windows Clients with DPM 2010   Enjoy. David Allen MVP ... read more

DPM 2010 was only released earlier this month but the product team are already looking at the next version.  They are currently scoping what should go into the next version of the DPM and they want to know what you want! Follow the link below and complete the survey. http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2010/06/18/dpm-what-s-next-let-your-voice-be-heard.aspx This is your chance to be heard, so take the opportunity.    David Allen MVP System Center Operations Manager http://www.scdpmonline.org http://wmug.co.uk/blogs/aquilaweb     read more

The DPM 2010 management pack beta for System Center Operations Manager 2007 is now available on Microsoft Connect for download.  I am in the process of reviewing this management pack so I will post more details soon.  I will also be collecting feedback for the product team so if you have any feedback on this MP, please let me know.  This management pack has a different name from the current DPM 2007 MP so it will import along side the existing MP and will not update it.   Download the MP from... read more

At MMS this year, i365 announced that they are releasing an appliance that combines EVault with System Center Data Protection Manager.  This appliance will provide the functionality to protect heterogeneous platforms and extend DPM into the cloud.  This close relationship between i365 and Microsoft has resulted in i365 joining the System Center Alliance which is a network of System Center technology providers. View the i365 site for more information, http://www.i365.com. Click here for more information on i365 joining the System Center... read more

Ever wanted to know how much data your DPM servers are churning?  Perhaps you are looking to implement DPM2DPM4DR and want to know how much data you'll be transferring across you WAN, or perhaps you are investigating what storage to purchase and need this data to make an informed assessment.  Well this is how you calculate your churn, it's easy to do but a bit time consuming as it's not possible to export data from the Jobs view. Open the DPM console, select the Monitoring pane and the Jobs tab. Click Create Filter from the Actions pane. Give your new filter a name and select a 24 hour... read more

I was using the DPM 2010 Upgrade Advisor to get the recommended steps for upgrading DPM servers that share a tape library when I noticed a small, but important, mistake. If you use the upgrade advisor to  provide the upgrade steps for a DPM Library Master server, step 1 looks like this. Remove Library sharing on library client using the following instructions: On each library client run the following commands on an elevated command prompt: SetSharedDPMDatabase.exe -removedatabasesharing AddLibraryServerForDPM.exe -dpmserverwithlibrary <FQDN of Tape library server> All... read more

I recently found that Microsoft released a product called Remote Desktop Connection Manager at the end of May. If you have a number of DPM servers to administer this tool could be very useful to you as you can only access the DPM console on the DPM server. What's good about this, and other products like it, is that it stores all the connection details for all your servers so connecting and logging into servers is much quicker and simpler. It also allows you to create nested groups so you can organize all you server connections to best suit your needs. Another feature I also like is ... read more