System Center Data Protection Manager

Data Protection Manager 2012 Unable to Protect Sharepoint

Flemming Riis — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:21:28 GMT

I ran into a issue with Data Protection Manager where I was unable to protect a sharepoint instalation

The specified account could not be configured for Sharepoint Protection , no matter what account I used.

728 0F88 05/02 15:53:59.414 18 fsutils.cpp(3873) WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80070002] : GetFileAttributes failed for C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\Datasources\PSExchangeDatasourceConfig.xml
0728 0F88 05/02 15:53:59.414 18 fsutils.cpp(2173) WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990a52] : Invalid filespec:Datasources\PSExchangeDatasourceConfig.xml

Log file was hinted at permissions

And guess what I did wrong , noob error tried to do something important from a non elevated prompt

So always remember Run as Administrator

Data Protection Manager 2012 Unable to protect database with case sensitive collation Invalid object name 'SYS.DATABASES'

Flemming Riis — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:41:29 GMT

I ran into a issue with Data Protection Manager where I was unable to protect SQL databases , 30 seconds after agent was installed and protection group created database went into replica inconsistent.

From the DPM Log , all manual backup jobs from SQL worked without issues , no issues with vss writer

From DPMRACurr.errlog:
WARNING SQL - ICommandText::Execute of "SELECT RECOVERY_MODEL_DESC FROM SYS.DATABASES WHERE NAME = N'msdb'" - Failed
0A00 0AE4 04/30 17:20:45.373 03 sqlqueryhelper.cpp(332) [0000000003B4E9B0] WARNING SQL - Error Description "Invalid object name 'SYS.DATABASES'."
0A00 0AE4 04/30 17:20:45.373 03 sqlqueryhelper.cpp(345) [0000000003B4E9B0] WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80040e37] SQL - sql code = 208 (Errorlevel - 0)
0A00 0AE4 04/30 17:20:45.373 03 sqlqueryhelper.cpp(353) [0000000003B4E9B0] WARNING SQL - Detailed Description "Invalid object name 'SYS.DATABASES'."
0A00 0AE4 04/30 17:20:45.373 31 sqlwriterhelperplugin.cpp(1133) [00000000008BFC90] WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80040e37] Error while querying the Database msdb recovery model from SQLInstance Removed
0A00 0AE4 04/30 17:20:45.373 31 sqlwriterhelperplugin.cpp(1135) [00000000008BFC90] WARNING SQL Error Information: Invalid object name 'SYS.DATABASES'.

Found a 2nd reference at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmsqlbackup/thread/9a51c938-0bd0-4be0-b9e1-e016cbebc217?prof=required

Logged a case on a national day off and had the pleasure of working with Carlos , he scoped the case and from start to working DPM 45 minutes ! world class

We got a updated SQLWriterHelperPlugin.dll so if you run into this issue log a case with premier

Protection Windows 8 with Data Protection Manager 2012

Flemming Riis — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:01:49 GMT

Protecting Windows Server 8 with Data Protection Manager 2012 is the same procedure as on Windows 2008 R2.

Windows Server Backup feature needs to be installed to protect System State

Configure Server Add Role

Add Role Based

Select Windows Server Backup

Or save some time and use powershell

inport-module servermanager and add-windowfeature Windows-Server-Backup

Create Protection Group

Select Retention

Create Protection Group

And its time to test recovery

Installing Data Protection Manager Agent on Windows Server 8

Flemming Riis — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:29:46 GMT

If you are in a small shop and don’t use Orchestrator and Config Manager to install agents this would be the steps needed , they are identical with install on 2008 R2

Agents –> Install

If they agent isn't installed on the server you need use “Install Agent”

Select Server(s)

Add Credentials

DPM = Success !

Installing Data Protection Manager on Windows Server 8

Flemming Riis — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:47:50 GMT

The current version of Data Protection Manager 2010 or 2012 RC does not support Windows 8 so Microsoft have released a CTP of SP1 so we can test the integration for Windows 8 , I believe it’s the first time a Service Pack build have been out in the public for a product that still is in the RC state (at least externally)

This part will only cover the install that are a 100% match of the Windows 2008 R2 installer , next part will cover the Windows 8 feature support

Install Data Protection Manager 2012 SP1 CTP to gain Windows 8 Support

Data Protection Manager installer adds Framework Required for Operation

Installer as we know it from 2012 RC , personally I would prefer to wait with the reboot until after install was completed but then again that’s where scripting comes into play instead of doing manual installs.

For production I would always use the full sql server install , and with the new license changes for systemcenter 2012 its “free” to use so that makes the decision much easier.

Coffee Time.

DPM = Success !

Data Protection Manager , Recovery Virtual Machine / Disaster Recovery

Flemming Riis — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:42:13 GMT

With Data Protection Manager 2012 its possible to protect whole virtual machines and recover then as full machines , saving the time to install agents and rebuild the OS from bare metal

With Data Protection Manager 2012 we have the ability to restore a complete virtual machine, backup needs to be performed with the Hyper-V integration for DPM

Under protection we need to select the Microsoft Hyper-V and Recover

If we drill down to the VHD level only the VHD file will be recovered and that can only be restored to a network location.

Option one for restore is Recover to Original Instance

It will then recover the vhd files and config files

When Recovery Starts DPM will take the Virtual Machine offline

And after recovery is completed the Virtual Machine needs to be started manually , but no other interaction is needed.

Or is is possible to restore the virtual machine to another host

And we need to select a destination for the machine when redirected to another host.

DPM will recovery config files and any VHD file with the virtual machine

Success !

And DPM will register the virtual machine on the new host , depending on network configuration there might be a need to change the network settings after the recovery

This will still require some extra work if restore from cluster as there isn't a way (as I see it) to recovery to a new cluster only to files shares on Hyper-V hosts , but in a disaster recovery scenario a cluster isn't always available

Data Protection Manager , Silently Changing File Recovery Points Retention

Flemming Riis — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:57:12 GMT

I ran into a issue today where DPM silently have changed the File Recovery Points , in the above senario we keep 60 snapshots within the limit of 64 snapshots

If we change the retention so we go beyond the supported 64 snapshots DPM will automatically and without warning change to a weekly snapshot , a warning would be very nice as this can and will be missed if people are just making a adjustment for a existing protection group.

But if we go though Modify in the File Recovery Points and exceed the 64 snapshot limit we will get a warning.

So be carefull

Data Protection Manager , Backup / Restore Exchange 2010

Flemming Riis — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:13:52 GMT

This post will show the steps needed to protect and recover a Exchange 2010 database in a single server installation , future post will show recovery in DAG.

First step is to create a new Protection Group containing the Exchange database we want to protect

In the protection group you can set DPM to check integrity so that the load of the operation will be on the DPM server

Data Protection Manager 201x supports backup of DAG when server is not in a dag there is only the Full Backup option available.

15 minutes of frequency will enable us to restore a mailbox database that is up to 15 minutes behind so in case of a database+log failure the max data loss is 15 minutes.

When creating the protection group we can schedule the initial data transfer or transfer right away or third option is to move the data though removable media

Data Protection Manager will default run a consistency job if the replica is inconsistent this can also be scheduled

And we can then see the protection group being protected

And Event ID 3154 tells us that the database is gone

Either though powershell run set-mailboxdatabase –Identity “mailboxdatabasename” –AllowFileRestore $True to enable that Data Protection Manager can restore the database

Or though the GUI

Select the database you want to restore and Latest to get the most recent backup

When Recent is selected the database can only be recovered to the original server if you select a time other then latest its possible use other recovery options

As Latest was selected Data Protection Manager and Exchange will reply log files if present , this will enable close to zero data loss if log files are intact

And time to wait for a short while.

And the database is back and operational.

Data Protection Manager , Additional Protection of Domain Controllers Recommended Part 1/2

Flemming Riis — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:01:35 GMT

repost from flemmingriis.com

This is part 1 of 2 , next post will try to cover the steps for recovery when there is only tapes left.

Data Protection Manager require a domain to be able to work , this means that in a disaster recovery scenario we need to be able to get active directory up and running without the help of Data Protection Manager , this is in my opinion a big issue that everyone needs to step up on the soap box and yell about , adding the option to logon with a local account would speed up things and help out a lot , this would require that the site is alive and only the Active Directory is dead or that there is a 2nd Data Protection Server creating protection of critical workloads Offsite

Disaster Recovery can be triggered by complete site failure or rouge admin disabling all high privileged account locking admins out of the domain

The “workaround” is to schedule local backups with Windows Server Backup and then let Data Protection Manager back that up to tape as we can restore that from a “clean” build , but preferable copy the backup offsite or to tape directly on a server , this will be a cost issues on a lot of smaller sites but it cant be stressed enough that we need be to able to recovery Active Directory without Data Protection Manager.

This is in addition to the normal backup of domain controllers though Data Protection Manager, and would apply to every single backup vendor , always keep a separate native backup of active directory, auditors will complain but setting up a safe procedure for storage the additional backup is worth the effort

Reference : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772519(WS.10).aspx

Setup a schedule

When destination is remote , the backup will be overwritten each day so its needs to keep some rotation on the destination to ensure that there is more than one generation to recover from if disaster strikes , and again if there can be backup to tape it would be great

And we now have a WindowsImageBackup we can use if disaster strikes

Data Protection Manager 2012 , Disaster Recovery

Flemming Riis — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:59:57 GMT

Repost from : flemmingriis.com

Backup is one thing , Restore is another especially disaster recovery , in this blog post we will cover the scenario where everything is gone except the backup tapes , first blog post will cover getting the domain up and running again where following posts will cover fileservers , sql and exchange.

Data Protection Manager requires a functional domain to be able to recover any data from tape , so first step will always be to get the domain up and running again.

In this post we a production domain test.local with dc10.test.local as the sole domain controller and dpm10.test.local as the Data Protection Manager server.

For restore purpose we setup dctemp10.temptest.local and dpmtemp10.temptest.local to restore the data , so a disaster recovery will always require staging of the restore data if the domain is lost.

Its always recommended to keep additional backup of the domain controllers outside of Data Protection Manager to ensure that we always no matter what happens can recover the domain and then start recovery

But always keep separate backup of domain controllers , there cant be to many backups if the media is located in a big safe somewhere

On the test.local domain we need a complete backup of the Domain Controller

And we will need the configuration database for Data Protection Manager

After creating the Protection Groups create a manual recovery point to tape , both for the domain controller and the Data Protection Manager configuration database

For testing I am using Cristalink brilliant Virtual Tape Library for Data Protection Manager http://www.cristalink.com/fs/ , so here the backup is located on 3 virtual tapes.

We need a new domain to restore to until we can get the original production environment up and running so here we created a new domain and is adding a Data Protection Manager Server to the same domain.

To simulate adding tapes from the library we use FileStreams Import feature Load From File

And then we can see the same tapes as we had before the wipe of the Domain Controller and Data Protection Manager Server

We then need to start a detailed inventory so we can see what's on the tapes

After the detailed inventory have completed we need to Recatalog Imported Tape to add the content of the tapes to the Data Protection Managers configuration database

We then need to recover the System Protection from the tapes we did a recatalog on

Only restore option for systemprotection is a network folder

And its time to start the restore

Data Protection Manager == Success

We then need to share the folder out so we can access it from the Windows 2008 R2 installation media

to Restore from the recovered data we need to start the Windows 2008 R2 installer , DHCP needs to be enabled for networking support

Select a repair

As there are no local images to restore from select next

And start networking

Connect to the DPM Server

With Credentials from the new temporary domain

Select the Image to restore

Start the ReImage

And Wait

For about 12 minutes on my test setup

And after a reboot and setting fixed ip address the domain is up and running , and we now have a working domain so we can start to restore the Data Protection Manager server and then start restore all remaining workloads.

Data Protection Manager 2012 (Backup and Recovery of Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Generic Data Source Support)

Flemming Riis — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:40:55 GMT

One of the many new features in DPM2012 is the ability to use Generic Data Source Support where application owners can provide VSS support so Data Protection Manager can make a backup of the application, Microsoft have provided a writer for VMM 2012 that protect the database, hopefully more complex applications can be backed up this way in the future imagine having a writer for Biztalk that will protect all needed items , or Oracle / Domino and other 3rd party applications.

For a license point of view i dont know if it requre a enterprise ML or a standard one so protection VMM wouldnt require a Enterprise ML for SQL , but time will tell on that one.

Microsoft have provided a new VSS writer for Virtual Machine Manager 2012 that Data Protection Manager can use

So on our protection group we can select the VMM Express Writer

Setup the protection group

And as we are used to with DPM Sucess !

On the Virtual Machine Manager we can see that the VSS writer now calls SQL and create a backup of the configuration database

And before we break anything we verify that the backup is Complete and OK.

Lets detatch

and then delete the database in the filesystem

And verify that the Virtual Machine Manager is “broken”

Go into recovery select latest recovery point for the VMM Backup

And we can see that we want to recover the VirtualManagerDB

And as we have broken the running install we will replace/overwrite with recovery to original instance

And we can see the list of items for the recovery

and 20 seconds later we have Sucess

And in the eventlog we can see that the database have been restored

And SQL agrees

Then we close and open the Virtual Machine Manager interface again.

Sucess ! no overcast clouds are still here , nice detail that VMM recovers without service restart or anything.

Data Protection Manager 2012 beta 2 (Protecting Sharepoint 2010)

Flemming Riis — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:10:00 GMT

One highly requested feature is the ability to backup and restore sharepoint server , Microsoft have improved their sharepoint support in Data Protection Manager 2012 and added support for single item level recovery without having to restore the whole content database this will give a faster recovery.

The procedure for creating the backup havent changed from DPM2010 and i can highly recomend Mike Resseler’s 3 step blog post with setting up the 2010 part

http://scug.be/blogs/scdpm/archive/2010/03/11/sharepoint-2010-protection-in-dpm-2010-part-1.aspx

Current limitations as pr beta 2 (subject to change)

· Item-level recovery for items in Filestream databases will not be optimized.

· Tape recovery will not be optimized.

· DPM does not support item-level recovery for SharePoint sites using Variations. For more information about Variations, see Variations overview.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27216 beta2 and documentation download

On the sharepoint server after DPM Agent Installation , run ConfigureSharepoint.exe –EnableSharepointProtection , this will prompt you for a account that is Sharepoint Administrator

Create a protection group and add the Sharepoint install (here everything is located on one server) and let the first backup complete

DPM = Sucess

DPM will index the sharepoint content once a day , so there can be some delay in restore selection showing all content this can be foced with

get-ProtectionGroup dpm10.demo.local |get-datasource |where-object {$_.type –like "*sharepoint*"} | start-createcatalog , this will index the backup

If we then delete the document

then we can go into DPM and restore the item

When we select recovery

Since the original farm is running we will Recover without the using recovery farm

The new party trick is that DPM2012 will mount the content database from the replica on the Data Protection Manager server, this will save a significiant ammount of data transfer , but require that the replica being recovered from is located on disk (not sure if that will change as we go closer to RTM)

And we have our document back.

We can then on the Sharepoint Server see that DPM have attached a database to the local instance and then run the export / import commands on sharepoint to recovery the data, if we are fast enough we can see the database being mounted over the network to the DPM server.

Data Protection Manager 2012 (Protecting Hyper V Guests)

Flemming Riis — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:11:00 GMT

One of the great features in Data Protection Manager is the ability to protect virtual machines without having to install agents, this will though HyperV and VSS create a backup of the virtual machine.

This is one of the many “smaller” features that completes the systemcenter suite of products , Hyper V and Virtual Machine Manager enables flexible automates virtulization and Data Protection Manager enables best of class backup of Windows Guests in the same HyperV Cluster.

Just one more reason to evaluate HyperV , Virtual Machine Manager and Data Protection Manager

First we need to make sure that we have the DPM agent on all our HyperV Hosts so we can protect resouces in a cluster (the same feature set is now available in DPM 2012 for stand alone hyper-v hosts.

Create a Protection Group and browse though the cluster to the resource you want to protect.

Setup protection goals and transfer the data for the first backup

and lets transfer some data to the guest

And head back into the Data Protection Manager and Create Recovery Point

and Create Recovery Point for Short Term Protection

and or backup is running

and we can see that a backup will transfer the data moved into the guest instead of a full copy of the guest (this is new on stand alone hosts)

And we can see our VHD file for the guest in our recovery options and we are able to drill and and restore individual items if needed

Data Protection Manager 2012 beta 2 (Disaster Recovery of Data Protection Manager Server)

Flemming Riis — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:08:00 GMT

This post will cover the disaster recovery of Data Protection Manager Server , there are a few ground rules that needs to be followed.

NEVER ever loose your tapes (duh)

ALWAYS keep a backup of the configuration database

ALWAYS keep a domain controller alive , and keep a backup of a domain controller with Windows Backup so it can be restored if everything else is gone.

If we loose our data protection manager server due to hardware issues flood earthquake or fonzie attack we need always to keep our data on tape a copy on a different Data Protection Manager with the DPM to DPM backup feature.

In this senario we will kill the Data Protection Manager server and recover data from tape only, i use the exellent filesteamer from http://www.cristalink.com awesome for testing and for long term recovery to disk.

DPM uninstalled and all data deleted, remember if you need to rebuild the operating system you need to call the server the same as before the rebuild.

We then need to start the installation of Data Protection Manager

This setup used the local sql database so for testing we will create a new sql instance for the Data Protection Manager Server

And we will use the default file paths for install

After install we dont have any recovery points as all our data is located on tape and we have lost our configuration database

Go to Management and Libaries

Select Rescan for Data Protection Manager to scan for tape devices

Yes please.

When the tape libary is connected after rescan we can see the tapes but not whats on them

We then need to perform a detailed inventory

After the detailed inventory the tapes now shows as inported with label the tapes was created with

If you know what tape the data protection manager configuration database is on in the newest version run the “Recatalog imported media”

Yes please , this will take time

But very fast on a test setup with a virtual tape libary

We can then see the Data Protection Manger server and recovery points for the configuration database

Data Protection Manager cant restores its own database directly so it needs to be restored to a network location

And we can only restore locally as we have no agents connected to the Data Protection Manager server (but we need to db locally)

Here we will just restore the Data Protection Manager configuration database

And Data Protection Managers trade mark “Sucessful” as usual

There are differnt ways to connect the database i prefeer just to stop all Data Protection Manager services

Detatch the database from our clean install

Copy the database files from the restore to C:\restore (example)

Attach the database files

And reboot the data protection manager server

After reboot we can now see that Data Protection Manager knows the tapes

And the agents is connected again and we can restore from mutiple sources.

There is some housekeeping that needs to be run after this but this will get you up and running and start restoring data

Data Protection Manager 2012 Backup Configuration Database

Flemming Riis — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:21:00 GMT

There is one thing that cant be said to many times about Data Protection Manager (regardless of version) ALWAYS backup the configuration database and when you have created one backup create another one.

DPMBackup.exe this can be schedules with windows task scheduler to create backup and then move of the Data Protection Manager server so if there is a hardware failure you will be able to recovery the database fast and start restoring data.

DPMBackup –db –targetlocation C:\DPM will create a backup of the local database instance and place the bak file in C:\DPM

The DPMBackup calls SQL and creates a regular SQL to file backup.

Or you can on the locally Data Protection Server select the databases and place then in a regular protection group , you need to ensure that to goes to tape on a regular basis.

If possible i prefeer to add one additional Data Protection Manager and use that to protect other Data Protection Managers Configuration Databases , so push a agent to the Data Protection Server

And add the SQL database

and set a retention range that fits your enviroment , short retention should be fint this is only to help if the database gets corrupt or the Data Protection Server vanishes into thin air.