Data Protection Manager - General announcements
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There is one optimization change you can make in DPM 2016 using Modern Backup Storage that “may” help reduce the backup times. The issue is that DPM tries to get the size of the recovery point by asking ReFs to count the blocks associated with that recovery point so it can update the DPMUI “storage used” in the UI.
To eliminate that additional calculation that can take a long time and allow the next backup to start you can disable that calculation using the below DPM powershell command.
Manage-DPMDSStorageSizeUpdate.ps1 -ManageStorageInfo StopSizeAutoUpdate
As a result, the “storage consumed” for each data source will not be displayed after a new backup is completed.
The above is covered in the release notes: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center/dpm/dpm-release-notes
Section titled: Recovery Points not being pruned, leading to an accumulation of Recovery Points.
If you need to know the amount used for a data source you can use the associated UpdateSizeForDS command.
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There may be circumstances where the replica volume for a protected data source is under allocated or a very large increase of protected data results in synchronization or recovery point job failures due to inadequate space on the replica.
Type: Recovery point
Status: Failed
Description: DPM is out of disk space for the replica. (ID 58 Details: There is not enough space on the disk (0x80070070))As in previous versions, DPM 2016 has replica auto-grow feature for modern backup storage (MBS) to help increase the replica sizes as the data sources grows. Under normal use conditions this feature works perfectly fine. If a job fails due to out of disk space, it will automatically grow the replica volume and schedule a new synchronization or recovery point job to run one hour in the future. However, if the amount of new data is much larger than the size of the replica after auto-grow, the jobs will continue to fail even as the auto-grow continues to increase the replica size. After two failures, auto-rerun is no longer triggered by default. In DPM 2012 R2 you had the ability to manually grow the replica volume as large as you wanted by using the “modify disk allocation” wizard, however in the DPM 2016 you do not have the ability to manually grow the replica volume using the same wizard. This can cause delays in getting good backups again to meet your SLA. If you know the new size of the protected data or want to grow the replica volume for future data growth in order to prevent future backup failures, you can grow the replica manually.
The below BLOG contains a DPM PowerShell script to make it easy to manually increase a replica volume to the new desired size.
How to increase DPM 2016 replica when using Modern Backup Storage (MBS)
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When using DPM 2016 to protect SystemState / BMR workloads the storage used for those backups will be higher when using DPM Modern Backup Storage (MBS) as compared to using legacy Logical Disk Manager (LDM) based storage used in DPM 2012 R2.
When DPM initiates a SystemState or BMR backup, Windows Server Backup is used and overwrites the existing WindowsImagebackup folder with the new backup data. For SystemState that folder is on the protected server and later transferred to the DPM Server replica. For BMR, Windows Server Backup overwrites the folder on the Replica volume directly.
When the replica is located on a LDM based volume, Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) snapshots are used for recovery points. When the files are overwritten on the replica volume, VSS performs a read for the original file blocks – compares them to what is about to be written - then either copies the original blocks to the shadow copy (recovery point volume) if different or just lets the write thru if the blocks are identical. This is called Copy On Write (COW). Between backups a lot of the blocks are the same between the files so the shadow copies were relatively small.
Modern Backup Storage (MBS) uses ReFs clones for recovery points. There is no copy on write operation like there are when using VSS, all writes are performed but instead of overwriting the original files the new blocks are written to different locations on the MBS volume. This is called allocate on write, so even blocks that are the same will use different free space on the Refs volume. That results in more storage consumption as each backup will consume the amount of space as a complete SystemState or BMR backup. IE: If the initial replica size shows 24GB used, then all subsequent backups will come very close to consuming the same amount of space. If the backups are taken frequently or have a long retention period the storage usage can be significant.
To mitigate this behavior I would suggest either take fewer BMR / SystemState recovery points, use a reduced retention period, or just plan on needing more storage for SystemState / BMR backups.
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System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 UR11 added support for VMware host level backup. If you attempt to perform an Item Level Recovery (ILR) from the latest recovery point for a Protected Windows VM, you receive an ID: 958 popup error message with the below details.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This problem is not present in Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) update rollup 1 (UR1) that also added support for VMWare host level backups.
WORKAROUND(S)
===========1) Select an earlier recovery point if the file(s) (version) you want to recover was included in an earlier recovery point.
2) Restore the entire VM to an alternate location and copy the desired file(s) out of that restored VM.
3) Create a new AD-HOC recovery point manually. That will enable ILR to work for all recovery points including the latest one you made manually.UPDATE: This issue is now fixed in DPM 2012 R2 UR13. However, you need to consider the following for the fix to work.
1. For Protection Groups created after applying UR13, Item Level Recovery will work fine.
2. For older Protection Groups, you need to modify the PGs by adding/removing a small VM or making some configuration changes to the PG for the fix to work. - Link
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SC DPM 2016 brings in features that delivers improvements in multiple key areas of backup efficiency, performance, flexibility and security. With Modern Backup Storage (MBS), DPM 2016 is turning around the way backups are stored by leveraging modern technologies like ReFS Block Cloning, ReFS Allocate On Write and VHDX. This to 3X faster backups and 50% reduction in storage consumption thus reducing overall backup TCO.
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dpm/2016/10/19/announcing-sc-dpm-2016-with-modern-backup-storage/ -
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DPM 2016 comes with Modern Backup Storage which delivers 50% storage savings, 3x faster backups, and more efficient storage with Workload-Aware storage. Modern Backup Storage can be used by setting up DPM 2016 on Windows Server 2016.
Add Storage to DPM 2016 -
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Very happy to report the release SC DPM 2012 R2 UR11 that adds protection for VMware host level backup of VMs. Here are major features of VMware VM Backup. Here are the few highlights of VMware VM backup.
- Agentless backup
- Backup at vCenter or ESXi level
- Backup VMware VM folders
- Ability to do ILR
- Protect large data center using DPM Scale Out
- Backup to Disk/Cloud
Here are the blogs and articles that are published.
BLOG - Implementing Microsoft DPM host level protection of VMware VMs
BLOG-Announcing VMware VM Backup using System Center Data Protection Manager
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We have made a bunch of improvements in this update, related to reboot requirements, Enterprise file server backup, online backups and more.
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After you install DPM 2012 R2 UR7 update (KB3065246), DPM cannot delete expired recovery points. This will lead to extra recovery point volume usage.
Please download and install the fix for this issue.
Fix for a known issue with Update Rollup 7 for System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager
MORE INFORMATION
==============DPM 2012 R2 UR7 introduced a new switch to the powershell cmdlet Get-RecoveryPoint, it now requires a -Datasource switch as seen below:
Get-RecoveryPoint -Datasource $ds
If you have any custom powershell scripts that use that cmdlet, please modify them to use the new -Datasource switch.
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Below are some handy links for the DPM Console troubleshooter which can help you resolve console crashes and three DPMDB maintenance blogs.
Guided Walkthrough for Troubleshooting Data Protection Manager console issues
DPMDB Maintenance Part 1: Database consistency check and your DPMDB
DPMDB Maintenance Part 2: Identifying and dealing with fragmentation in your DPMDB
DPMDB Maintenance Part 3: Dealing with a large DPMDB -
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Hello - Please find the following BLOG on the new streamlined method of registering a DPM 2012 SP1 or later DPM server to backup to Azure. There is no longer a requirement to upload a certificate when registering a DPM server for online backups.
Below are two Blogs on the subject.
How to register a DPM 2012 SP1 or later server to backup to Microsoft Azure
Simplified workflow to configure backup to Azure from DPM -
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Please find the following whitepaper detailing how to dedup DPM storage pool to help reduce overall disk storage requirements for disk based backups. This solution requires Windows 2012 R2 and System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2
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For DPM Console crash issues, please review this troubleshooter before posting a new question.
Guided Walkthrough for Troubleshooting Data Protection Manager console issues
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updated 6-5-13
Hello Everyone,
System Center DPM 2012 is not supported running on Windows Server 2012. We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012. This issue is fixed in System Center 2012 SP1 which supports being installed on Windows 2012 operating system.
If you are already in this condition, you have two options:
A) You can upgrade to System Center 2012 Sp1.
B) You can backup the DPMDB, rebuild the DPM server using Windows 2008 R2 install DPM 2012, then restore your current database. The process is explained in the below technet article.
Recovering DPM servers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj244606.aspxWe also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 workloads using SCS DPM 2012, you must upgrade to DPM 2012 Sp1. Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012.
Data Protection Manager - Tape Protection announcements
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Have feedback or a suggestion to improve DPM? We have added DPM and Azure back-up on user voice feedback forum on Azure. We had piloted this initially with Azure backup and were thrilled with all the feedback/ideas. We have now added SCDPM to it as well. Would love to hear your ideas and feedback. If you see an idea you like, vote for it ! If you have a new ideas, post it (the search bar will tell you if there is a similar idea so do check that before you post a new idea).
Go to - http://feedback.azure.com/forums/258995-azure-backup-and-scdpm
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Both Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V server have support for Virtual Fibre Channel (vFC) which allow you to attach physical fibre channel devices inside a Hyper-V guest running Windows 2012 / R2.
System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 SP1 and later support running on Windows 2012.
System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 is also supported running on Windows 2012 R2.When running DPM 2012.. in a Windows 2012 virtual machine, using the synthetic FC to connect to a tape drive / library is not supported because Windows 2012 does not currently offer support for it.
However, DPM 2012 R2 +Sp3 or later running in Windows 2012 R2 virtual machine does support using the Vfc to connect to a fiber attached tape library
This is documented in the following TechNet articles.
Windows: Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel Overview
DPM: Verifying tape library compatibility - see the section labeled: Run the compatibility tool for Hyper-V Fibre Channel
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Below are quick links for using certificates encrypting DPM tape backups for all versions of DPM.
How to Create Self-Signed Certificates for Successful Encryptions
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399364.aspxMakeCert.exe is available as part of the Windows SDK, which you can download from one of the below links:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=84091.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa386968(v=vs.85).aspxYou can install Windows SDK and select option “Tools” under “.Net Development” and unchecked everything else for installing makecert.exe only.
How to Import Certificates into DPMBackupStore
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399563.aspx
People who have to have deal with Real Certificate Authorities can use the following information to assist with their requests:
If you are dealing with an organization that uses a Windows CA, have them issue a certificate based on the "Web Server" Template.
If you are dealing with an organization that uses another vendors CA, request that they issue you a certificate with the following:
Key Usages = Digital Signature, Non-Repudiation, Key Encipherment, Data Encipherment
Extended Key Usage = Server Authentication
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DPM 2010 now supports the IBM System Storage TS2900 / TS357X Tape Autoloader after installing this DPM 2010 or later Hotfix.
2465832 Description of the hotfix rollup package for System Center Data Protection Manager 2010: March 2011
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2465832However, you must also add this registry key before that fix will be implemented.
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent DWORD: RSMCompatMode Value: 29 (Decimal)
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· Windows 2012 no longer has a tape library compatibility certification tests, so NO vendors tape libraries will show as being certified in the Windows catalog. For that reason the guidance we're giving customers is if the library is listed on the Windows server catalog under the hardware / storage section and shows compatible with Windows 2008 X64 or Windows 2008 R2 x64, then it should work fine with all versions of DPM. Any driver incompatibilities with Windows 2012 will need to be addressed by the vendor.
http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/
Compatible tape libraries - Applies To: System Center 2012 - Data Protection Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Data Protection Manager
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh916523.aspx
Also leverage the DPM 2007 compatibility list, anything on this list should work on DPM2010 if they have Windows 2008 X64 drivers.System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Tested Hardware
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dpm/cc678583.aspxIf you cannot find support for the library, you can download and run the DPMtapeLibraryCompatibilityChecker tool from the following page.
Verifying tape library compatibility
For Standalone drive.
=====================Run the following command to list libraries attached to the system.
DPMLibraryTest.exe /Certify /LL
Run the following command, where \\.\tape######## is the symbolic name of the tape drive to test from the output of the /LL command.
DPMLibraryTest.exe /CERTIFY /TL \\.\Tape2147483646 /SA
For tape library
================Run the following command to list the libraries attached to the system:
DPMLibraryTest.exe /Certify /LL
Run the following command, where \\.\Changer# is the symbolic name of the tape library to test from the output of the /LL command.
DPMLibraryTest.exe /CERTIFY /TL \\.\Changer0 /ST 1 2 4 5
Description of the tests.
Test 1: Basic Configuration
This test will scan your system for attached devices. It will identify the libraries and the stand-alone drives attached to your system and give you a summary of what it finds. For each device, you will see a Device Name, Serial Number, Vendor Name, Product Name, Firmware Revision and SCSI properties.
At the end of this test, the user must verify whether all the information as seen by the tool. If the information is incorrect, check the following:
• Check if all the devices are listed in Device Manager.
• Ensure that the drivers for the devices are up-to-date.
• If the drive mappings are incorrect, use the DPMDriveMapping.exe to correct the mappings. If you do not have DPM installed on the computer, copy the DPMLA.xml that DPMDriveMapping.exe creates to the folder to which you extracted the Tape Library Certification tool.Test 2: Mount/Dismount
This test will pick a tape from the first available slot and perform a mount/dismount of that tape to/from a drive.Test3: Drive Cleaning
A cleaner cartridge in needed for this test to run. Please read the pre-requisites section for this test. If you are using Firestreamer or a VTL where you cannot remove/change tapes, please use the /ST flag of the tool to skip the cleaner test.Test4: I/E Media
This test will pick up the first available tape and move it to the I/E port and back. If your library/VTL does not have I/E ports the tool will automatically skip the test.Test5: I/O
This test will pick up the first available writable tape and write a few buffers to it and try reading what is written. The purpose of this test is only to check for reading/writing ability. Any specific/transient errors in any drive have to be inspected using the Advance Mode.
Warning
This test will overwrite information in the tape. Ensure that the first available tape does not have important data on it.Once complete, for any test failures, review the LibraryTestTool-*-Curr.errlog files located in the directory you ran the tool from.
Once the tool passes the tests, then DPM should be able to use the tape library for backups.
NOTE2: DPM does not support tape libraries that have auto-clean feature enabled. If the library supports auto-clean but that feature cannot be disabled, wo do not recommend using that library with DPM.
NOTE1: DPM does not support Automated Cartridge System Library Software, ACSLS is the software that controls an Automated Cartridge System (ACS). There are no plans to support it.
Data Protection Manager - Exchange protection announcements
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Have feedback or a suggestion to improve DPM? We have added DPM and Azure back-up on user voice feedback forum on Azure. We had piloted this initially with Azure backup and were thrilled with all the feedback/ideas. We have now added SCDPM to it as well. Would love to hear your ideas and feedback. If you see an idea you like, vote for it ! If you have a new ideas, post it (the search bar will tell you if there is a similar idea so do check that before you post a new idea).
Go to - http://feedback.azure.com/forums/258995-azure-backup-and-scdpm
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Be sure to review the Exchange Planning items located here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh758158.aspx
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Symptom:
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When trying to backup Exchange 2013 databases with Eseutil Integrity check, the backup fails with:
Data consistency verification check failed for LOGS of Storage group <Storage group name> on <Server.contoso.com> (ID 30146 Details: Unknown error (0xc0000135) (0xC0000135))Resolution:
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Install the VC++ 2012 redistributable on the DPM server
Release Notes for Data Protection Manager in System Center 2012 SP1 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj860394.aspx
NOTES:
Exchange Server 2013 backups fail
Description: Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 backups fail if the option to run Eseutil on the backup is enabled.
Workaround: Install the VC++ 2012 redistributable on the DPM server.
For more information, see Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 1.
Data Protection Manager -SharePoint Protection announcements
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When you try to protect a Windows SharePoint farm using SQL 2012 Always On AG backend using System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 Sp1, you receive one of the following error messages:
ERROR
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DPM cannot protect this SharePoint farm because DPM did not detect any dependent databases to be protected. (ID: 32008) Verify that the appropriate SQL Server VSS writers are enabled on the computers hosting the SharePoint databases.
This Windows SharePoint Services farm cannot be protected because DPM did not find any dependent databases and search indices to be protected. (ID: 32008) 1) Verify that the appropriate SQL Server VSS Writers on the computers hosting the Windows SharePoint Services databases are enabled. 2) Verify that the Windows SharePoint Services Search VSS Writers are enabled on the computers where the search indices are.CAUSE
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At this time using SQL 2012 availability groups (AG) for Sharepoint back end is not supported by DPM 2012 Sp1. We will have some public facing content on the limitation shortly. I cannot say at this time if this will be fixed in a future DPM 2012 rollup, it needs to be investigated by the product group.
Data Protection Manager - Hyper-V and CSV Clusters announcements
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Free ebook: Microsoft System Center Data Protection for the Hybrid Cloud
If you are responsible for architecting and designing the backup strategy for your organization, especially if you're looking for ways to incorporate cloud backup into your business continuity scenarios, this book is for you. With the increasing trends in virtualization as well as the move to the pubic cloud, IT organizations are headed toward a world where data and applications run in on-premises private clouds as well as in the public cloud. This has key implications for data protection strategy, and it is important to choose the solution that provides the same level of data protection you have afforded so far while allowing you to harness the power of the public cloud.
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DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details: VssError:The writer experienced a transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error may not reoccur. (0x800423F3))"
This is fixed in SQL Server 2012 SP2
Bugs that are fixed in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2958429- DPM’s full backup on the server with AlwaysOn secondary will be converted to copy_only backup
How to obtain the latest service pack for SQL Server 2012
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2755533 -
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I would like make you aware of what seems to be change in behavior between Windows 2008 (R2) / Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2 host level backups of guests. It used to be that when a Guest was backed up by DPM when protecting Windows 2008 (R2) and Windows 2012 hosts - the Hyper-V writer would communicate with the integration components inside the guest and would consider a host level backup as being equivalent of guest level backup for application data like exchange and SQL. This resulted in the application logs being truncated after every host level backup of the guest. This was desirable so you didn't need two separate backups, one for the VM guest, and one for application backup to truncate the logs. If you really wanted to prevent the logs from being truncated so you could perform separate application level backups, you needed to add a registry key to the guest and set it to a value of 1. This is documented on the following Windows KB article.975925 A hotfix is available that addresses the issues that occur when you perform a host-level backup of a Hyper-V VM on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975925/en-us
It appears that the default behavior in Windows 2012 R2 is just the opposite and the logs do not get truncated by default when performing host level backups of guest VM's running applications like exchange and SQL.The solution is to add the following registry keys and value as needed inside the Guest and set it to 0 so the application logs do get truncated after host level backups.
In Registry Editor, locate the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Virtualization\VssRequestor
Create a registry entry of the REG_DWORD type.
Set the name of the registry entry to BackupType.
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When DPM protects a Hyper-V guest using HOST level protection, the Hyper-V writer on the hyper-V host communicates with the integration components inside the guest and determines if child partition or saved state backup will be performed. Once DPM adds the guest to a protection group, the description: "Backup using child partition" or "backup using saved state" will not change, even thought the condition that determines the state may change.
To get a real-time view of how then next backup will be perfomed, you can run the following test.
To list hyper-V writer captions for guests to see if online or saved state backups can be done:
From an administrative command prompt:
a. Type: copy con script.txt and press enter
b. Type: list writers and press enter
c. Press CTRL + Z (to save)
d. Type: diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: backup using"Output will be displayed for each guest.
Here are the general conditions that make a VM go into a saved state during backup.Protecting Hyper-V machines
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh757866.aspx
Conditions when DPM fails to back up Hyper-V virtual machines in an online stateBy default, System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM) performs a backup of a Hyper-V Virtual Machine (VM) in an online state. However, DPM cannot back up a Hyper-V VM in an online state, if one or more of the following conditions are true:
•Backup (Volume Snapshot) Integration Service is disabled or not installed.
•The virtual machine has one or more dynamic disks.
•The virtual machine has one or more non-NTFS based volumes.
•The virtual machine Cluster Resource Group in a cluster setup is offline.
•The virtual machine is not in a running state.
•A ShadowStorage assignment of a volume inside the virtual machine is explicitly set to a different volume other than itself.
•An App-V drive is installed on the virtual machine that creates a non-NTFS volume.These conditions are set by the Hyper-V writer. In such a case, the VM is put in a saved state before a snapshot of host volumes are taken (except when the VM is turned off) for a backup. The Hyper-V writer adds the VM in the following format:
•For offline backups: Backup Using Saved State\<VMName>
•For online backups: Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\<VMName>Additional reason is if there is less than 300MB free space on a volume in the guest.
If you are using DPM 2010/2012/2012 Sp1 to backup guests running on a Windows 2008 (R2) hyper-v server you may observe that Windows 2012 server / Windows 8 guest VM's only get the option "Backup using saved state". It is also reported that some Windows 2012 server guests transfer the whole VM during backups instead on block level changes.The below resolves both of these issues.
SOLUTION
=======The Windows 8 or Windows server 2012 guest needs to have scoped VSS snapshots turned off in order to support online backups. This is a new feature apparently in Win8/2012 and the default is enabled.
Implement this registry key on EACH Windows 8 or Windows 2012 guest to resolve the issue. You must add a key called SystemRestore, then add a value called ScopeSnapshots as follows.
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
REG_DWORD ScopeSnapshots 0x0See the additional info on scoped snapshots.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa378941(v=vs.85).aspx
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This tool will help serialize DPM backups across multiple Windows 2008 based hyper-v clusters in a unattended way.
Download the tool from the below KB article.
System Center Data Protection Manager CSV Serialization Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36524Overview
With the current approach, if there are multiple clusters managed by DPM, the user needs to run DSConfig.ps1 on one node of each cluster and then XMLs of each cluster needs to be merged and replace the DataSources.xml in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft System Center 2012\DPM\DPM\Config directory of the DPM server. And moreover these steps need to be repeated each time any VM is added to the cluster.
The XML merging/serialization tool will remove many of these manual steps. The tool needs to be run on the DPM server periodically (or scheduled). It will run DSconfig.ps1 on one node of each cluster, merge the XML and replace Datasources.xml in the DPM config directory.System requirements
Supported operating systems: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
For DPM: Supported operating systems:
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
For CSV Cluster Nodes:
Windows Server 20008 R2 & Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 -
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Please be aware of the following blog.
Hyper-V Backup doesn’t interrupt running virtual machines (anymore)
You are using DPM 2012 R2 to backup Windows Server 2012 R2 hyper-v guests and observe that some VM's only backup using "Offline" state but you want backups to be using "Online " state.
SOLUTION
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Ensure the effected guests have a SCSI controller configured in the properties of the Hyper-V guest. Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V servers require a SCSI controller inside the guests so snapshots created as part of the backup process can be mounted. IDE controller does not allow this hot-mount operation, so you must install a SCSI controller in the guest.The Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V writer on the hyper-V host communicates with the integration components inside the guest and determines if online or offline backup will be performed. Be sure the latest integration components are installed in each guest.
To get a real-time view of how the next backup will be performed, you can run the following test.
To list Windows 2012 R2 hyper-V writer captions for guests to see if online or offline state backups will be done:
From an administrative command prompt on the Hyper-V server:
a. Type: copy con script.txt and press enter
b. Type: list writers and press enter
c. Press CTRL + Z + enter (to save)
d. Type: diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: O"
Output will be displayed for each guest as follows.
C:\temp>diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: O"
- Caption: Online\SQLSERVER
- Caption: Offline\WSS-V14The Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V writer adds the VM in the following format:
For offline backups: Offline\<VMName>
For online backups: Online\<VMName>NEW NOTE: Windows group just released “Linux Integration Services Version 3.5 for Hyper-V”. The document mentions that some versions of Red Hat and CentOS are now supported to do online backup.
Live virtual machine backup support
======================
RHEL/CentOS 6.0-6.3
RHEL/CentOS 5.7-5.8
RHEL/CentOS 5.5-5.6ADDTL NOTES: If there are open file handles during a live virtual machine backup operation, the backed-up virtual hard disks (VHDs) might have to undergo a file system consistency check (fsck) when restored.
Live backup operations can fail silently if the virtual machine has an attached iSCSI device or a physical disk that is directly attached to a virtual machine (“pass-through disk”).
NOTE: Anyone wanting online backups on RHEL/Centos 6.4/6.5 should check out Hyper-V Backup Essentials on the LIC GitHub.
A customer reported this installed without problems and seems to work.
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System Center DPM 2012 (non-Sp1) is not supported running on Windows Server 2012. We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012. This issue is fixed in DPM 2012 SP1, so please upgrade to fix the problem.
We also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 using SCS DPM 2012 )non-Sp1) Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 (non-sp1) running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012. This includes Hyper-V protection.
Data Protection Manager - Setup and Agent management announcements
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We have had several reports of having trouble installing the DPM 2016 agent on Windows server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems.
The symptoms vary depending on how the installation / upgrade is performed but below is a common error if installing it manually:
The program can’t start because mi.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem
The file MI.DLL is part of Windows Management Framework Infrastructure and is installed by Windows Management Framework (WFM). Either WFM is not installed or the installation is corrupt and missing some files.
Another symptom is when you attempt to "Attach" an agent you get an error saying it cannot start DPMAC service which is also caused by not having WMF installed on the protected server.
Please review this article to resolve the problem: DPM Agent does not install on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
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Attempts to schedule a mailed report in DPM 2012 fail with “Reporting Services Server cannot connect to the DPM database”
Please find solution in the following blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2013/12/05/attempts-to-schedule-a-mailed-report-in-dpm-2012-fail-with-reporting-services-server-cannot-connect-to-the-dpm-database.aspx
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updated 6-5-13
Hello Everyone,
System Center DPM 2012 is not supported running on Windows Server 2012. We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012. This issue is fixed in System Center 2012 SP1 which supports being installed on Windows 2012 operating system.
If you are already in this condition, you have two options:
A) You can upgrade to System Center 2012 Sp1.
B) You can backup the DPMDB, rebuild the DPM server using Windows 2008 R2 install DPM 2012, then restore your current database. The process is explained in the below technet article.
Recovering DPM servers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj244606.aspxWe also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 workloads using SCS DPM 2012, you must upgrade to DPM 2012 Sp1. Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012.
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General information on using CBA.
How to use certificates to authenticate computers in workgroups or untrusted domains with data protection manager
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/04/23/how-to-use-certificates-to-authenticate-computers-in-workgroups-or-untrusted-domains-with-data-protection-manager.aspxdpm 2012 certificate based protection
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2011/09/01/dpm-2012-certificate-based-protection.aspxThe articles cover symptoms, diagnosis and log analysis.
DPM Server
Missing DPM cert reg key (it’s own key)
Missing Member cert reg key on the DPM server
Missing or invalid certificate
Member Server
Missing DPM cert reg key on the member server.
Missing Member server cert reg key (it’s own key)
Missing or invalid certificateDPM Certificate Troubleshooting-Part 1: General Troubleshooting
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/07/23/dpm-certificate-troubleshooting-part-1-general-troubleshooting.aspx
DPM Certificate Troubleshooting- Part 2: Registry
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/07/24/dpm-certificate-troubleshooting-part-2-registry.aspx
DPM Certificate Troubleshooting-Part 3-Certificates
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/07/25/dpm-certificate-troubleshooting-part-3-certificates.aspxEnjoy
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Hello Folks,
Please check out Shane Brasher's excellent DPM agent troubleshooting blog here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/02/06/data-protection-manager-agent-network-troubleshooting.aspx
Don't overlook these earlier blogs:
Agent Tshooting: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/04/23/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-data-protection-manager-2007.aspx
DCOM: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/05/09/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-data-protection-manager-2007-dcom.aspx
Networking: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/05/01/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-data-protection-manager-2007-networking.aspx
Data Protection Manager - Storage Pool announcements
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The below blog and whitepaper will cover the supported DPM configuration necessary to dedup the DPM storage pool. Internal testing showed storage savings anywhere between 50% to 90%.
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Hello,
Since this link is broken: URL http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c136c66c-bd4a-4fb1-8088-f610cd02dc51&displaylang=en
Here is a NEW location of the latest storage calculators posted September 2, 2010.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2010/09/02/new-dpm2010-storage-calculator-links-sep-2010.aspx
Contains:
DPM_2010_Storage_Calculator_for_Exchange_2010.xlsx
DPM_2010_Storage_Calculator_for_Hyper-V.xlsx
DPM_2010_Storage_Calculator_for_SharePoint.xlsxEnjoy.
Data Protection Manager - Scripting announcements
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Please be aware that if you installs either of the following WMI updates on a DPM 2010 server, that some DPM power shell scripts may no longer work.
Some scripts will fail with an ArgumentOutOfrangeException. I believe that Pruneshadowcopies2010.ps1 is one such script that will fail.
2506146 Description of Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows Server 2008 SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506146/EN-US
2506143 Description of Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506143/EN-US
Un-installing 2506146 or 2506143 fixes the problem(s).
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0 VotesVM Migration Problem.
Hi. I have migrate many V Ms between two efferent host without problem but we have exception for 2 or 3. I get error(23008) incompatibility. We set same virtual switch ...Unanswered | 1 Replies | 31 Views | Created by Iraj Saremi - Thursday, April 19, 2018 7:44 AM | Last reply by lifo_1 - 7 hours 38 minutes ago
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0 Votes
Running parallel backups of data sources in the same protection group
Hello everyone Is there a way to get DPM to run parallel backups of data sources in the same protection group. We used to see 3 jobs from the same data source run at the ...Unanswered | 1 Replies | 163 Views | Created by NOA2018 - Thursday, March 08, 2018 1:28 PM | Last reply by lifo_1 - 7 hours 42 minutes ago -
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DPM 2012r2 new cluster
I am in the process of building a new cluster and will be live migrating machines over to it. Assuming i setup the new cluster in my current DPM how is it going to handle this? Will it understand the ... -
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DPM 1801 - Persist security settings Share level vs Volume level difference?
Hi, I was wondering what is the difference between protecting a file server at the share level vs the volume level when it comes to recovery security settings? When I restore from ... -
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Primary DPM 2012R2 server crashes (reboot) after adding a secondary DPM
Hi there, I have the following issue - my primary DPM server started crashing (reboot) after adding a secondary DPM server. This happened even from the beginning, after attaching ...Answered | 7 Replies | 220 Views | Created by Alex Rowdy - Wednesday, April 18, 2018 2:24 PM | Last reply by Alex Rowdy - Sunday, April 22, 2018 8:13 AM -
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Restore to Shares of an Scale Out Fileserver
Hy, today i tried to restore a Server to an Scale Out FileServer (SOFS). (DPM2016) When i restore i had to select a Network Folder as Backup ... -
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Server hanging during backup
Hi, I have a DPM 2010 that im using to backup VM Windows server 2003. Whenever the backup start the Virtual Machine hang and i have to reset it. No errors in the logs what so ...Unanswered | 3 Replies | 2498 Views | Created by Laith_IT - Thursday, October 06, 2011 8:48 AM | Last reply by Mahen1984 - Sunday, April 22, 2018 5:48 AM -
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Registry key to disable data size calculation?
Hi, anyone know what the registry key is to disable "calculate data size" when creating PGs in DPM 2016? UR4 has that feature but I have been unable to ...Answered | 4 Replies | 374 Views | Created by Pk76 - Friday, November 10, 2017 1:28 PM | Last reply by Larry.B.IT - Friday, April 20, 2018 8:44 PM -
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DPM 2016 Replica Inconsistent Error on Share With Data Deduplication
Hello: I am currently running a Server 2016 machine with System Center 2016 DPM for my server backups (all my other servers are also 2016). I am noticing a strange issue when ... -
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DPM 2016 - Large Modern Backup Storage with ReFS, but default Virtual Disk size is only max 16TB?
Hello, We use DPM 2016 on Windows 2016 Server with Modern Backup Storage (MBS). Our backup disk is formatted as ReFS, is about 37TB and we have about 17TB of free space ... -
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DPM 2016 Not Displaying all restorable folders
Hi Guys, I have a DPM 2016 server (Version 342) built on Server 2016, I've just noticed that it is not showing me all of my recoverable data from a file server - it will get a certain distance down ... -
1 Votes
SQL 2017 Cluster Availability Group Backup
Does DPM 2016 support backup of SQL 2017 Availability Groups? We upgraded to SQL 2017 this weekend and while the Cluster and Availability Group shows up in the DPM new/modify ...Proposed | 5 Replies | 388 Views | Created by Chilliflavour - Monday, October 30, 2017 1:32 PM | Last reply by Rahul.Choudhary - Thursday, April 19, 2018 11:31 AM -
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DPM 2016 U4 - 1.3TB File Server will not complete Consistency Check.
DPM 2016 U4 - 1.3TB File Server will not complete Consistency Check. The File server has a couple of Volumes that are backing up fine, apart from the d:\ ...Unanswered | 1 Replies | 40 Views | Created by Dan Wingfield - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 4:25 AM | Last reply by Rahul.Choudhary - Thursday, April 19, 2018 11:26 AM -
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Planning SCOM Architecture
hi, Through SCOM my organization wants to monitor 1000 Agents, 500 network device and want trend analysis for 2 years I am planning for two Management server with ... -
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DPM console Crash
Hi everyone. Im running DPM 2016 on server 2016 with SQL 2012 This was an upgrade from DPM 2012r2 Im trying to add a server to a protection ...Unanswered | 5 Replies | 67 Views | Created by tofieldv - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 8:28 AM | Last reply by Rahul.Choudhary - Thursday, April 19, 2018 3:47 AM -
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Repair DPM 2012 r2 server and SQL database do not use DpmBackup and DpmSync?
Hi Everybody, I have SCDPM 2012 R2 server and remote SQL Server for DPM. my problem DPM server host in hyper-v had failure. I can't start that VM. In ...Unanswered | 1 Replies | 43 Views | Created by za_phu - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 6:16 AM | Last reply by Matej Klemencic - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 5:04 PM -
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Incorrect storage used space?
Hello All, I have a DPM 2016 server that has 5 2TB disks in a disk pool. The server is backing up a number of SQL data sources. The disk storage screen is showing me numbers that ... -
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SQL (DPM) Database Running Out of Space - Advice?
Space available: The table which appears to be consuming the space is: Table Name # Records Reserved (KB) Data (KB) Indexes ... -
1 Votes
Scheduled jobs are not running DPM 2012 R2
Hi, Recently upgraded my dpm 2012 sp1 to 2012 R2 and upgrade went well but i got 'Connection to the DPM service has been lost.(event id:917 and other event ids ...Proposed | 7 Replies | 1329 Views | Created by Sri26 - Sunday, July 20, 2014 8:52 AM | Last reply by Rahul.Choudhary - Saturday, April 14, 2018 7:35 AM -
0 Votes
DPM Semaphore timeout period expired during consistency check
We have 2 DPM servers (one on-site and one remote). The issue resides on the remote DPM server. We recently created a new logical drive, which wiped all data. All replicas became ...Unanswered | 6 Replies | 2128 Views | Created by succ123 - Thursday, August 07, 2014 12:29 PM | Last reply by DirectorBrandX - Friday, April 13, 2018 6:37 PM - Items 1 to 20 of 11807 Next ›
Data Protection Manager - General announcements
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There is one optimization change you can make in DPM 2016 using Modern Backup Storage that “may” help reduce the backup times. The issue is that DPM tries to get the size of the recovery point by asking ReFs to count the blocks associated with that recovery point so it can update the DPMUI “storage used” in the UI.
To eliminate that additional calculation that can take a long time and allow the next backup to start you can disable that calculation using the below DPM powershell command.
Manage-DPMDSStorageSizeUpdate.ps1 -ManageStorageInfo StopSizeAutoUpdate
As a result, the “storage consumed” for each data source will not be displayed after a new backup is completed.
The above is covered in the release notes: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center/dpm/dpm-release-notes
Section titled: Recovery Points not being pruned, leading to an accumulation of Recovery Points.
If you need to know the amount used for a data source you can use the associated UpdateSizeForDS command.
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There may be circumstances where the replica volume for a protected data source is under allocated or a very large increase of protected data results in synchronization or recovery point job failures due to inadequate space on the replica.
Type: Recovery point
Status: Failed
Description: DPM is out of disk space for the replica. (ID 58 Details: There is not enough space on the disk (0x80070070))As in previous versions, DPM 2016 has replica auto-grow feature for modern backup storage (MBS) to help increase the replica sizes as the data sources grows. Under normal use conditions this feature works perfectly fine. If a job fails due to out of disk space, it will automatically grow the replica volume and schedule a new synchronization or recovery point job to run one hour in the future. However, if the amount of new data is much larger than the size of the replica after auto-grow, the jobs will continue to fail even as the auto-grow continues to increase the replica size. After two failures, auto-rerun is no longer triggered by default. In DPM 2012 R2 you had the ability to manually grow the replica volume as large as you wanted by using the “modify disk allocation” wizard, however in the DPM 2016 you do not have the ability to manually grow the replica volume using the same wizard. This can cause delays in getting good backups again to meet your SLA. If you know the new size of the protected data or want to grow the replica volume for future data growth in order to prevent future backup failures, you can grow the replica manually.
The below BLOG contains a DPM PowerShell script to make it easy to manually increase a replica volume to the new desired size.
How to increase DPM 2016 replica when using Modern Backup Storage (MBS)
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When using DPM 2016 to protect SystemState / BMR workloads the storage used for those backups will be higher when using DPM Modern Backup Storage (MBS) as compared to using legacy Logical Disk Manager (LDM) based storage used in DPM 2012 R2.
When DPM initiates a SystemState or BMR backup, Windows Server Backup is used and overwrites the existing WindowsImagebackup folder with the new backup data. For SystemState that folder is on the protected server and later transferred to the DPM Server replica. For BMR, Windows Server Backup overwrites the folder on the Replica volume directly.
When the replica is located on a LDM based volume, Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) snapshots are used for recovery points. When the files are overwritten on the replica volume, VSS performs a read for the original file blocks – compares them to what is about to be written - then either copies the original blocks to the shadow copy (recovery point volume) if different or just lets the write thru if the blocks are identical. This is called Copy On Write (COW). Between backups a lot of the blocks are the same between the files so the shadow copies were relatively small.
Modern Backup Storage (MBS) uses ReFs clones for recovery points. There is no copy on write operation like there are when using VSS, all writes are performed but instead of overwriting the original files the new blocks are written to different locations on the MBS volume. This is called allocate on write, so even blocks that are the same will use different free space on the Refs volume. That results in more storage consumption as each backup will consume the amount of space as a complete SystemState or BMR backup. IE: If the initial replica size shows 24GB used, then all subsequent backups will come very close to consuming the same amount of space. If the backups are taken frequently or have a long retention period the storage usage can be significant.
To mitigate this behavior I would suggest either take fewer BMR / SystemState recovery points, use a reduced retention period, or just plan on needing more storage for SystemState / BMR backups.
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System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 UR11 added support for VMware host level backup. If you attempt to perform an Item Level Recovery (ILR) from the latest recovery point for a Protected Windows VM, you receive an ID: 958 popup error message with the below details.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This problem is not present in Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS) update rollup 1 (UR1) that also added support for VMWare host level backups.
WORKAROUND(S)
===========1) Select an earlier recovery point if the file(s) (version) you want to recover was included in an earlier recovery point.
2) Restore the entire VM to an alternate location and copy the desired file(s) out of that restored VM.
3) Create a new AD-HOC recovery point manually. That will enable ILR to work for all recovery points including the latest one you made manually.UPDATE: This issue is now fixed in DPM 2012 R2 UR13. However, you need to consider the following for the fix to work.
1. For Protection Groups created after applying UR13, Item Level Recovery will work fine.
2. For older Protection Groups, you need to modify the PGs by adding/removing a small VM or making some configuration changes to the PG for the fix to work. - Link
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SC DPM 2016 brings in features that delivers improvements in multiple key areas of backup efficiency, performance, flexibility and security. With Modern Backup Storage (MBS), DPM 2016 is turning around the way backups are stored by leveraging modern technologies like ReFS Block Cloning, ReFS Allocate On Write and VHDX. This to 3X faster backups and 50% reduction in storage consumption thus reducing overall backup TCO.
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dpm/2016/10/19/announcing-sc-dpm-2016-with-modern-backup-storage/ -
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DPM 2016 comes with Modern Backup Storage which delivers 50% storage savings, 3x faster backups, and more efficient storage with Workload-Aware storage. Modern Backup Storage can be used by setting up DPM 2016 on Windows Server 2016.
Add Storage to DPM 2016 -
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Very happy to report the release SC DPM 2012 R2 UR11 that adds protection for VMware host level backup of VMs. Here are major features of VMware VM Backup. Here are the few highlights of VMware VM backup.
- Agentless backup
- Backup at vCenter or ESXi level
- Backup VMware VM folders
- Ability to do ILR
- Protect large data center using DPM Scale Out
- Backup to Disk/Cloud
Here are the blogs and articles that are published.
BLOG - Implementing Microsoft DPM host level protection of VMware VMs
BLOG-Announcing VMware VM Backup using System Center Data Protection Manager
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We have made a bunch of improvements in this update, related to reboot requirements, Enterprise file server backup, online backups and more.
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After you install DPM 2012 R2 UR7 update (KB3065246), DPM cannot delete expired recovery points. This will lead to extra recovery point volume usage.
Please download and install the fix for this issue.
Fix for a known issue with Update Rollup 7 for System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager
MORE INFORMATION
==============DPM 2012 R2 UR7 introduced a new switch to the powershell cmdlet Get-RecoveryPoint, it now requires a -Datasource switch as seen below:
Get-RecoveryPoint -Datasource $ds
If you have any custom powershell scripts that use that cmdlet, please modify them to use the new -Datasource switch.
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Below are some handy links for the DPM Console troubleshooter which can help you resolve console crashes and three DPMDB maintenance blogs.
Guided Walkthrough for Troubleshooting Data Protection Manager console issues
DPMDB Maintenance Part 1: Database consistency check and your DPMDB
DPMDB Maintenance Part 2: Identifying and dealing with fragmentation in your DPMDB
DPMDB Maintenance Part 3: Dealing with a large DPMDB -
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Hello - Please find the following BLOG on the new streamlined method of registering a DPM 2012 SP1 or later DPM server to backup to Azure. There is no longer a requirement to upload a certificate when registering a DPM server for online backups.
Below are two Blogs on the subject.
How to register a DPM 2012 SP1 or later server to backup to Microsoft Azure
Simplified workflow to configure backup to Azure from DPM -
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Please find the following whitepaper detailing how to dedup DPM storage pool to help reduce overall disk storage requirements for disk based backups. This solution requires Windows 2012 R2 and System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2
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For DPM Console crash issues, please review this troubleshooter before posting a new question.
Guided Walkthrough for Troubleshooting Data Protection Manager console issues
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updated 6-5-13
Hello Everyone,
System Center DPM 2012 is not supported running on Windows Server 2012. We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012. This issue is fixed in System Center 2012 SP1 which supports being installed on Windows 2012 operating system.
If you are already in this condition, you have two options:
A) You can upgrade to System Center 2012 Sp1.
B) You can backup the DPMDB, rebuild the DPM server using Windows 2008 R2 install DPM 2012, then restore your current database. The process is explained in the below technet article.
Recovering DPM servers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj244606.aspxWe also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 workloads using SCS DPM 2012, you must upgrade to DPM 2012 Sp1. Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012.
Data Protection Manager - Tape Protection announcements
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Have feedback or a suggestion to improve DPM? We have added DPM and Azure back-up on user voice feedback forum on Azure. We had piloted this initially with Azure backup and were thrilled with all the feedback/ideas. We have now added SCDPM to it as well. Would love to hear your ideas and feedback. If you see an idea you like, vote for it ! If you have a new ideas, post it (the search bar will tell you if there is a similar idea so do check that before you post a new idea).
Go to - http://feedback.azure.com/forums/258995-azure-backup-and-scdpm
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Both Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V server have support for Virtual Fibre Channel (vFC) which allow you to attach physical fibre channel devices inside a Hyper-V guest running Windows 2012 / R2.
System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 SP1 and later support running on Windows 2012.
System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 is also supported running on Windows 2012 R2.When running DPM 2012.. in a Windows 2012 virtual machine, using the synthetic FC to connect to a tape drive / library is not supported because Windows 2012 does not currently offer support for it.
However, DPM 2012 R2 +Sp3 or later running in Windows 2012 R2 virtual machine does support using the Vfc to connect to a fiber attached tape library
This is documented in the following TechNet articles.
Windows: Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel Overview
DPM: Verifying tape library compatibility - see the section labeled: Run the compatibility tool for Hyper-V Fibre Channel
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Below are quick links for using certificates encrypting DPM tape backups for all versions of DPM.
How to Create Self-Signed Certificates for Successful Encryptions
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399364.aspxMakeCert.exe is available as part of the Windows SDK, which you can download from one of the below links:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=84091.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa386968(v=vs.85).aspxYou can install Windows SDK and select option “Tools” under “.Net Development” and unchecked everything else for installing makecert.exe only.
How to Import Certificates into DPMBackupStore
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399563.aspx
People who have to have deal with Real Certificate Authorities can use the following information to assist with their requests:
If you are dealing with an organization that uses a Windows CA, have them issue a certificate based on the "Web Server" Template.
If you are dealing with an organization that uses another vendors CA, request that they issue you a certificate with the following:
Key Usages = Digital Signature, Non-Repudiation, Key Encipherment, Data Encipherment
Extended Key Usage = Server Authentication
The above match the values of your self generated certificate. -
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DPM 2010 now supports the IBM System Storage TS2900 / TS357X Tape Autoloader after installing this DPM 2010 or later Hotfix.
2465832 Description of the hotfix rollup package for System Center Data Protection Manager 2010: March 2011
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2465832However, you must also add this registry key before that fix will be implemented.
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent DWORD: RSMCompatMode Value: 29 (Decimal)
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· Windows 2012 no longer has a tape library compatibility certification tests, so NO vendors tape libraries will show as being certified in the Windows catalog. For that reason the guidance we're giving customers is if the library is listed on the Windows server catalog under the hardware / storage section and shows compatible with Windows 2008 X64 or Windows 2008 R2 x64, then it should work fine with all versions of DPM. Any driver incompatibilities with Windows 2012 will need to be addressed by the vendor.
http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/
Compatible tape libraries - Applies To: System Center 2012 - Data Protection Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Data Protection Manager
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh916523.aspx
Also leverage the DPM 2007 compatibility list, anything on this list should work on DPM2010 if they have Windows 2008 X64 drivers.System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Tested Hardware
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dpm/cc678583.aspxIf you cannot find support for the library, you can download and run the DPMtapeLibraryCompatibilityChecker tool from the following page.
Verifying tape library compatibility
For Standalone drive.
=====================Run the following command to list libraries attached to the system.
DPMLibraryTest.exe /Certify /LL
Run the following command, where \\.\tape######## is the symbolic name of the tape drive to test from the output of the /LL command.
DPMLibraryTest.exe /CERTIFY /TL \\.\Tape2147483646 /SA
For tape library
================Run the following command to list the libraries attached to the system:
DPMLibraryTest.exe /Certify /LL
Run the following command, where \\.\Changer# is the symbolic name of the tape library to test from the output of the /LL command.
DPMLibraryTest.exe /CERTIFY /TL \\.\Changer0 /ST 1 2 4 5
Description of the tests.
Test 1: Basic Configuration
This test will scan your system for attached devices. It will identify the libraries and the stand-alone drives attached to your system and give you a summary of what it finds. For each device, you will see a Device Name, Serial Number, Vendor Name, Product Name, Firmware Revision and SCSI properties.
At the end of this test, the user must verify whether all the information as seen by the tool. If the information is incorrect, check the following:
• Check if all the devices are listed in Device Manager.
• Ensure that the drivers for the devices are up-to-date.
• If the drive mappings are incorrect, use the DPMDriveMapping.exe to correct the mappings. If you do not have DPM installed on the computer, copy the DPMLA.xml that DPMDriveMapping.exe creates to the folder to which you extracted the Tape Library Certification tool.Test 2: Mount/Dismount
This test will pick a tape from the first available slot and perform a mount/dismount of that tape to/from a drive.Test3: Drive Cleaning
A cleaner cartridge in needed for this test to run. Please read the pre-requisites section for this test. If you are using Firestreamer or a VTL where you cannot remove/change tapes, please use the /ST flag of the tool to skip the cleaner test.Test4: I/E Media
This test will pick up the first available tape and move it to the I/E port and back. If your library/VTL does not have I/E ports the tool will automatically skip the test.Test5: I/O
This test will pick up the first available writable tape and write a few buffers to it and try reading what is written. The purpose of this test is only to check for reading/writing ability. Any specific/transient errors in any drive have to be inspected using the Advance Mode.
Warning
This test will overwrite information in the tape. Ensure that the first available tape does not have important data on it.Once complete, for any test failures, review the LibraryTestTool-*-Curr.errlog files located in the directory you ran the tool from.
Once the tool passes the tests, then DPM should be able to use the tape library for backups.
NOTE2: DPM does not support tape libraries that have auto-clean feature enabled. If the library supports auto-clean but that feature cannot be disabled, wo do not recommend using that library with DPM.
NOTE1: DPM does not support Automated Cartridge System Library Software, ACSLS is the software that controls an Automated Cartridge System (ACS). There are no plans to support it.
Data Protection Manager - Exchange protection announcements
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Have feedback or a suggestion to improve DPM? We have added DPM and Azure back-up on user voice feedback forum on Azure. We had piloted this initially with Azure backup and were thrilled with all the feedback/ideas. We have now added SCDPM to it as well. Would love to hear your ideas and feedback. If you see an idea you like, vote for it ! If you have a new ideas, post it (the search bar will tell you if there is a similar idea so do check that before you post a new idea).
Go to - http://feedback.azure.com/forums/258995-azure-backup-and-scdpm
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Be sure to review the Exchange Planning items located here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh758158.aspx
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Symptom:
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When trying to backup Exchange 2013 databases with Eseutil Integrity check, the backup fails with:
Data consistency verification check failed for LOGS of Storage group <Storage group name> on <Server.contoso.com> (ID 30146 Details: Unknown error (0xc0000135) (0xC0000135))Resolution:
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Install the VC++ 2012 redistributable on the DPM server
Release Notes for Data Protection Manager in System Center 2012 SP1 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj860394.aspx
NOTES:
Exchange Server 2013 backups fail
Description: Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 backups fail if the option to run Eseutil on the backup is enabled.
Workaround: Install the VC++ 2012 redistributable on the DPM server.
For more information, see Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 1.
Data Protection Manager -SharePoint Protection announcements
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When you try to protect a Windows SharePoint farm using SQL 2012 Always On AG backend using System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 Sp1, you receive one of the following error messages:
ERROR
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DPM cannot protect this SharePoint farm because DPM did not detect any dependent databases to be protected. (ID: 32008) Verify that the appropriate SQL Server VSS writers are enabled on the computers hosting the SharePoint databases.
This Windows SharePoint Services farm cannot be protected because DPM did not find any dependent databases and search indices to be protected. (ID: 32008) 1) Verify that the appropriate SQL Server VSS Writers on the computers hosting the Windows SharePoint Services databases are enabled. 2) Verify that the Windows SharePoint Services Search VSS Writers are enabled on the computers where the search indices are.CAUSE
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At this time using SQL 2012 availability groups (AG) for Sharepoint back end is not supported by DPM 2012 Sp1. We will have some public facing content on the limitation shortly. I cannot say at this time if this will be fixed in a future DPM 2012 rollup, it needs to be investigated by the product group.
Data Protection Manager - Hyper-V and CSV Clusters announcements
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Free ebook: Microsoft System Center Data Protection for the Hybrid Cloud
If you are responsible for architecting and designing the backup strategy for your organization, especially if you're looking for ways to incorporate cloud backup into your business continuity scenarios, this book is for you. With the increasing trends in virtualization as well as the move to the pubic cloud, IT organizations are headed toward a world where data and applications run in on-premises private clouds as well as in the public cloud. This has key implications for data protection strategy, and it is important to choose the solution that provides the same level of data protection you have afforded so far while allowing you to harness the power of the public cloud.
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DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details: VssError:The writer experienced a transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error may not reoccur. (0x800423F3))"
This is fixed in SQL Server 2012 SP2
Bugs that are fixed in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2958429- DPM’s full backup on the server with AlwaysOn secondary will be converted to copy_only backup
How to obtain the latest service pack for SQL Server 2012
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2755533 -
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I would like make you aware of what seems to be change in behavior between Windows 2008 (R2) / Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2 host level backups of guests. It used to be that when a Guest was backed up by DPM when protecting Windows 2008 (R2) and Windows 2012 hosts - the Hyper-V writer would communicate with the integration components inside the guest and would consider a host level backup as being equivalent of guest level backup for application data like exchange and SQL. This resulted in the application logs being truncated after every host level backup of the guest. This was desirable so you didn't need two separate backups, one for the VM guest, and one for application backup to truncate the logs. If you really wanted to prevent the logs from being truncated so you could perform separate application level backups, you needed to add a registry key to the guest and set it to a value of 1. This is documented on the following Windows KB article.975925 A hotfix is available that addresses the issues that occur when you perform a host-level backup of a Hyper-V VM on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975925/en-us
It appears that the default behavior in Windows 2012 R2 is just the opposite and the logs do not get truncated by default when performing host level backups of guest VM's running applications like exchange and SQL.The solution is to add the following registry keys and value as needed inside the Guest and set it to 0 so the application logs do get truncated after host level backups.
In Registry Editor, locate the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Virtualization\VssRequestor
Create a registry entry of the REG_DWORD type.
Set the name of the registry entry to BackupType.
Set the value of the registry entry to 0. -
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When DPM protects a Hyper-V guest using HOST level protection, the Hyper-V writer on the hyper-V host communicates with the integration components inside the guest and determines if child partition or saved state backup will be performed. Once DPM adds the guest to a protection group, the description: "Backup using child partition" or "backup using saved state" will not change, even thought the condition that determines the state may change.
To get a real-time view of how then next backup will be perfomed, you can run the following test.
To list hyper-V writer captions for guests to see if online or saved state backups can be done:
From an administrative command prompt:
a. Type: copy con script.txt and press enter
b. Type: list writers and press enter
c. Press CTRL + Z (to save)
d. Type: diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: backup using"Output will be displayed for each guest.
Here are the general conditions that make a VM go into a saved state during backup.Protecting Hyper-V machines
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh757866.aspx
Conditions when DPM fails to back up Hyper-V virtual machines in an online stateBy default, System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM) performs a backup of a Hyper-V Virtual Machine (VM) in an online state. However, DPM cannot back up a Hyper-V VM in an online state, if one or more of the following conditions are true:
•Backup (Volume Snapshot) Integration Service is disabled or not installed.
•The virtual machine has one or more dynamic disks.
•The virtual machine has one or more non-NTFS based volumes.
•The virtual machine Cluster Resource Group in a cluster setup is offline.
•The virtual machine is not in a running state.
•A ShadowStorage assignment of a volume inside the virtual machine is explicitly set to a different volume other than itself.
•An App-V drive is installed on the virtual machine that creates a non-NTFS volume.These conditions are set by the Hyper-V writer. In such a case, the VM is put in a saved state before a snapshot of host volumes are taken (except when the VM is turned off) for a backup. The Hyper-V writer adds the VM in the following format:
•For offline backups: Backup Using Saved State\<VMName>
•For online backups: Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\<VMName>Additional reason is if there is less than 300MB free space on a volume in the guest.
If you are using DPM 2010/2012/2012 Sp1 to backup guests running on a Windows 2008 (R2) hyper-v server you may observe that Windows 2012 server / Windows 8 guest VM's only get the option "Backup using saved state". It is also reported that some Windows 2012 server guests transfer the whole VM during backups instead on block level changes.The below resolves both of these issues.
SOLUTION
=======The Windows 8 or Windows server 2012 guest needs to have scoped VSS snapshots turned off in order to support online backups. This is a new feature apparently in Win8/2012 and the default is enabled.
Implement this registry key on EACH Windows 8 or Windows 2012 guest to resolve the issue. You must add a key called SystemRestore, then add a value called ScopeSnapshots as follows.
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
REG_DWORD ScopeSnapshots 0x0See the additional info on scoped snapshots.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa378941(v=vs.85).aspx
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This tool will help serialize DPM backups across multiple Windows 2008 based hyper-v clusters in a unattended way.
Download the tool from the below KB article.
System Center Data Protection Manager CSV Serialization Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36524Overview
With the current approach, if there are multiple clusters managed by DPM, the user needs to run DSConfig.ps1 on one node of each cluster and then XMLs of each cluster needs to be merged and replace the DataSources.xml in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft System Center 2012\DPM\DPM\Config directory of the DPM server. And moreover these steps need to be repeated each time any VM is added to the cluster.
The XML merging/serialization tool will remove many of these manual steps. The tool needs to be run on the DPM server periodically (or scheduled). It will run DSconfig.ps1 on one node of each cluster, merge the XML and replace Datasources.xml in the DPM config directory.System requirements
Supported operating systems: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
For DPM: Supported operating systems:
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
For CSV Cluster Nodes:
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Please be aware of the following blog.
Hyper-V Backup doesn’t interrupt running virtual machines (anymore)
You are using DPM 2012 R2 to backup Windows Server 2012 R2 hyper-v guests and observe that some VM's only backup using "Offline" state but you want backups to be using "Online " state.
SOLUTION
=======
Ensure the effected guests have a SCSI controller configured in the properties of the Hyper-V guest. Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V servers require a SCSI controller inside the guests so snapshots created as part of the backup process can be mounted. IDE controller does not allow this hot-mount operation, so you must install a SCSI controller in the guest.The Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V writer on the hyper-V host communicates with the integration components inside the guest and determines if online or offline backup will be performed. Be sure the latest integration components are installed in each guest.
To get a real-time view of how the next backup will be performed, you can run the following test.
To list Windows 2012 R2 hyper-V writer captions for guests to see if online or offline state backups will be done:
From an administrative command prompt on the Hyper-V server:
a. Type: copy con script.txt and press enter
b. Type: list writers and press enter
c. Press CTRL + Z + enter (to save)
d. Type: diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: O"
Output will be displayed for each guest as follows.
C:\temp>diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: O"
- Caption: Online\SQLSERVER
- Caption: Offline\WSS-V14The Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V writer adds the VM in the following format:
For offline backups: Offline\<VMName>
For online backups: Online\<VMName>NEW NOTE: Windows group just released “Linux Integration Services Version 3.5 for Hyper-V”. The document mentions that some versions of Red Hat and CentOS are now supported to do online backup.
Live virtual machine backup support
======================
RHEL/CentOS 6.0-6.3
RHEL/CentOS 5.7-5.8
RHEL/CentOS 5.5-5.6ADDTL NOTES: If there are open file handles during a live virtual machine backup operation, the backed-up virtual hard disks (VHDs) might have to undergo a file system consistency check (fsck) when restored.
Live backup operations can fail silently if the virtual machine has an attached iSCSI device or a physical disk that is directly attached to a virtual machine (“pass-through disk”).
NOTE: Anyone wanting online backups on RHEL/Centos 6.4/6.5 should check out Hyper-V Backup Essentials on the LIC GitHub.
A customer reported this installed without problems and seems to work.
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System Center DPM 2012 (non-Sp1) is not supported running on Windows Server 2012. We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012. This issue is fixed in DPM 2012 SP1, so please upgrade to fix the problem.
We also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 using SCS DPM 2012 )non-Sp1) Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 (non-sp1) running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012. This includes Hyper-V protection.
Data Protection Manager - Setup and Agent management announcements
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We have had several reports of having trouble installing the DPM 2016 agent on Windows server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems.
The symptoms vary depending on how the installation / upgrade is performed but below is a common error if installing it manually:
The program can’t start because mi.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem
The file MI.DLL is part of Windows Management Framework Infrastructure and is installed by Windows Management Framework (WFM). Either WFM is not installed or the installation is corrupt and missing some files.
Another symptom is when you attempt to "Attach" an agent you get an error saying it cannot start DPMAC service which is also caused by not having WMF installed on the protected server.
Please review this article to resolve the problem: DPM Agent does not install on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
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Attempts to schedule a mailed report in DPM 2012 fail with “Reporting Services Server cannot connect to the DPM database”
Please find solution in the following blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2013/12/05/attempts-to-schedule-a-mailed-report-in-dpm-2012-fail-with-reporting-services-server-cannot-connect-to-the-dpm-database.aspx
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updated 6-5-13
Hello Everyone,
System Center DPM 2012 is not supported running on Windows Server 2012. We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012. This issue is fixed in System Center 2012 SP1 which supports being installed on Windows 2012 operating system.
If you are already in this condition, you have two options:
A) You can upgrade to System Center 2012 Sp1.
B) You can backup the DPMDB, rebuild the DPM server using Windows 2008 R2 install DPM 2012, then restore your current database. The process is explained in the below technet article.
Recovering DPM servers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj244606.aspxWe also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 workloads using SCS DPM 2012, you must upgrade to DPM 2012 Sp1. Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012.
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General information on using CBA.
How to use certificates to authenticate computers in workgroups or untrusted domains with data protection manager
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/04/23/how-to-use-certificates-to-authenticate-computers-in-workgroups-or-untrusted-domains-with-data-protection-manager.aspxdpm 2012 certificate based protection
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2011/09/01/dpm-2012-certificate-based-protection.aspxThe articles cover symptoms, diagnosis and log analysis.
DPM Server
Missing DPM cert reg key (it’s own key)
Missing Member cert reg key on the DPM server
Missing or invalid certificate
Member Server
Missing DPM cert reg key on the member server.
Missing Member server cert reg key (it’s own key)
Missing or invalid certificateDPM Certificate Troubleshooting-Part 1: General Troubleshooting
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/07/23/dpm-certificate-troubleshooting-part-1-general-troubleshooting.aspx
DPM Certificate Troubleshooting- Part 2: Registry
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/07/24/dpm-certificate-troubleshooting-part-2-registry.aspx
DPM Certificate Troubleshooting-Part 3-Certificates
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/07/25/dpm-certificate-troubleshooting-part-3-certificates.aspxEnjoy
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Hello Folks,
Please check out Shane Brasher's excellent DPM agent troubleshooting blog here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/02/06/data-protection-manager-agent-network-troubleshooting.aspx
Don't overlook these earlier blogs:
Agent Tshooting: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/04/23/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-data-protection-manager-2007.aspx
DCOM: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/05/09/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-data-protection-manager-2007-dcom.aspx
Networking: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/05/01/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-data-protection-manager-2007-networking.aspx
Data Protection Manager - Storage Pool announcements
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The below blog and whitepaper will cover the supported DPM configuration necessary to dedup the DPM storage pool. Internal testing showed storage savings anywhere between 50% to 90%.
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Hello,
Since this link is broken: URL http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c136c66c-bd4a-4fb1-8088-f610cd02dc51&displaylang=en
Here is a NEW location of the latest storage calculators posted September 2, 2010.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2010/09/02/new-dpm2010-storage-calculator-links-sep-2010.aspx
Contains:
DPM_2010_Storage_Calculator_for_Exchange_2010.xlsx
DPM_2010_Storage_Calculator_for_Hyper-V.xlsx
DPM_2010_Storage_Calculator_for_SharePoint.xlsxEnjoy.
Data Protection Manager - Scripting announcements
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Please be aware that if you installs either of the following WMI updates on a DPM 2010 server, that some DPM power shell scripts may no longer work.
Some scripts will fail with an ArgumentOutOfrangeException. I believe that Pruneshadowcopies2010.ps1 is one such script that will fail.
2506146 Description of Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows Server 2008 SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506146/EN-US
2506143 Description of Windows Management Framework 3.0 for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506143/EN-US
Un-installing 2506146 or 2506143 fixes the problem(s).
