System State backups in Server 2008 are massive compared to previous server products due to the huge number of files that Server 2008 has. With different roles and features installed it is easily possible to have a system state containing over 50,000 files and up to 15GB in size. This obviously puts a larger overhead on protecting System State as before you may have only been protecting 3-4GB, now you could be protecting anything up to 15GB but this is no problem for DPM.
Here is a guide I have put together on protecting Server 2008 System State.
To provide System State protection on Windows Server 2008, DPM utilizes the "Windows Server Backup" feature so this needs to be installed on the servers that require System State backups. There are a few ways to do this:
- Server Manager GUI - Open Server Manager, click Add Features then select Windows Server Backup Features and follow the rest of the wizard to complete installation.
- Server Manager CMD - Open an elevated permissions command prompt window and enter servermanagercmd -install backup -allsubfeatures. Note that the servermanagercmd is now deprecated and may not be available in future versions of Windows.
- Server Manager PowerShell (Windows Server 2008 R2) - First, open an elevated permissions PowerShell window. Second, import the Server Manager module using the command Import-Module servermanager. Lastly, add the backup features using this command Add-WindowsFeature Backup-Features -IncludeAllSubFeature.
Once the backup features have been installed, system state protection can be protected. Obviously, the first thing we need is to make sure a DPM agent is installed on the server require protection. Secondly, we need to decide where we would like our System State backup placed, by default the Windows Server Backup will dump the backup in C:\WindowsImageBackup ready for DPM to backup which may be fine but remember the backup is likely to be 7-15GB in size. In many cases you will want to change the default location to a drive that will have enough space to store the backup.
To edit the default backup location, open C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Datasources\PSDataSourceConfig.xml on the server that is being protected and change <FilesToProtect> to the required drive.
Only change the drive letter, do not try and place the backup in sub folders as it will not work. The backup needs to be stored in the WindowsImageBackup directory on the root of a drive.
Now that the backup features have been installed and we have decided where to place our system state backup, we can finally use DPM and start protecting the system state.
- Open the DPM console and select the Protection pane.
- From the Actions menu, select "Create protection group."
- When the wizard opens, if you have the Welcome screen, click Next.
- Expand the server from the Available members list that requires protection and check System State and then click Next.
- Enter a name for your new protection group and your protection method, click Next.
- Select the required retention range(s) and set the recovery point schedule, click Next.
- Review the summary and confirm everything is correct, click Update Group.
- Done. You now have a protection group that is protecting the System State of one of your Server 2008 computers.
That's all there is to it !
As you will have noticed, creating the protection group to provide Server 2008 system state protection in DPM is exactly the same as it's always been and virtually the same as protecting any other data source which I personally think is brilliant as it means administrators continue to see consistency.
Hope that proves helpful.. Merry Christmas!