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Archive for the ‘Data Protection Manager’ Category

A video from Trainsignal  on how to use the calculator tool:

http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/videos/dpm-exchange-storage-calculator

The calculators:

 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24375

Are you new to System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM)? Here is a list of some videos from myITforums.com that will help you get up to speed on DPM:

Overview of System Center Data Protection Manager

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=922&categoryid=

DPM 2007 SP1 — How does DPM really work

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=1324&categoryid=

TechNet Webcast: Protecting Microsoft SharePoint with Data Protection Manager (Level 200)

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=507&categoryid=

A step by step demo of doing a Bare Metal Restore (BMR) using Data Protection Manager 2010

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=1959&categoryid=

Managing Client Data Backup, Storage and Management at Microsoft

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=2333&categoryid=

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Protecting your Private Cloud with DPM

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=2645&categoryid=

Cristalink Firestreamer Tape Library for DPM Jan2011

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=2132&categoryid=

i365 Evault CrossPlatform Backup & Recovery for DPM Jan2011

• http://www.myitforum.com/absolutevc/avc-view.aspx?videoid=2133&categoryid=

MVP Robert Hedblom recently presented a session on DPM at the Nordic Infrastructure Conference in Norway. There is a video of this on Vimeo.

This is one of the best videos I have seen on DPM 2012. I am not saying that because Robert is a friend of mine.

In this video he does a good job of explaining the new features in DPM 2012 and gives detailed demos.

He covers the new GUI, Certificate protection, SCOM and DPM, Central console, SharePoint and DPM, generic data source protection and more! There is a great Q& A at the end as well.

Here is the official description:

During this session you’ll get a great walk through of the new GUI and the new features of DPM 2012. The session also provides live demos and give you a good understanding how DPM works under the hood . After this session you’ll have an understanding how to protect your Microsoft production environment with Data Protection Manager 2012.

Here is a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/nicconf/review/35055224/edcdfa9672

Microsoft MVP Robert Hedblom is looking for feedback on what can be improved in DPM in regards to tape management.

He is at the MVP summit and could pass this feedback on directly to the DPM product group.  Act fast and post your feedback on his blog!

Here is the link:

http://robertanddpm.blogspot.com/2012/02/tape-management-improvements.html

I was honored to work with Microsoft DPM MVP Yegor Statsev and Sean O Farrell on a DPM 2010 poster. Both Yegor and Sean are great guys and run blogs with lot’s of good information on them. You can find  links to their blogs under the Tech Blog Sites section.

Here is a a description of the poster and a link to download it:

The Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 Overview poster was made to give an overview and quick reference to DPM’s components, architecture, and DPM protection scenarios. It consists of system requirements, licensing, architecture, supported workloads, storage types, design questions, DPM diagrams, disaster recovery scenarios and DPM within the System Center family.

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Data-Protection-Manager-e1835980

In case you missed it Here is the Data Protection Manager session by Jason Buffington from System Center Universe 2012 this past January.

Jason Buffington DPM Session from System Center Universe 2012 Video

Setting up anonymous SMTP in DPM has been an issue for some time. Anonymous SMTP notifications don’t work even if you have your Exchange server setup correctly to receive anonymous email from DPM. Let’s step through configuring this. Here are the steps to setup SMTP in DPM that does not require authentication:

1. In DPM Administrator Console, on the Action menu, click Options.

2. In the Options dialog box, on the SMTP Server tab, type the SMTP server name, the SMTP server port, and the e-mail address you want to display in the From box of the e-mail messages that DPM sends.

The e-mail address in the From box must be a valid e-mail address on the SMTP server.

3. To test the SMTP server settings, click Send Test E-mail, type the e-mail address to where you want DPM to send the test message, and then click OK.

If you leave the Username and Password name fields blank under “Authenticated SMTP Server” you will experience one of the following errors:

ID: 518

 

Details: An Authentication error occurred when trying to connect to the SMTP server.

You typed an incorrect user name, password, or SMTP server name. Type the correct user name and password to enable e-mail delivery of reports and alerts notifications.

 

After entering the information in all fields, sending a test message should succeed and you should then be able to receive e-mail reports and notifications if configured.

or

ID: 2013

 

Details: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password

 

DPM 2010 requires ALL the fields under the SMTP Server options to be filled in regardless if your SMTP server accepts anonymous connections or not.

The first thing to ensure is that “Allow Anonymous Relay on a Receive Connector” for your DPM server is setup on Exchange. Here is a link on how to configure this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232021.aspx

Ok now that we know the email server is set we need to configure some settings on the DPM server to get around these errors. The errors are a known issue and hopefully a fix will be released for this in the future. There are currently two work-arounds for the issue. These are:

1. In the registry on your DPM server, browse to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Notification\. Delete the SMTPPassword and SMTPUserName keys.

2. Create a local user account on the DPM server and give this user local administrative privileges. Enter the Username and Password of the user that you just setup under SMTP options in DPM.

That’s it now anonymous SMTP for DPM should work.

I have seen some questions regarding SIS that is installed with DPM. After doing some investigating and talking with Microsoft and some of the DPM MVP’s I can offer some clarification.

The SIS-Limited that is installed on a DPM server is actually a SIS Filter driver. The SIS Filter driver is what runs on DPM. You will not be able to manage the scaled down SIS like you can with full blown SIS. For example with the full blown SIS you can administer SIS using a command line tool named Sisadmin.exe. Well with SIS-Limited this tool does not exist.

DPM enables the filter driver so it can properly handle SIS files on a protected server. For example you may have SIS running on an Exchange server and DPM will know how to handle the SIS data properly when protecting it by using the SIS filter driver. DPM does not use SIS to conserve space in the storage pool when running SIS-Limited, so there is no de-dup by SIS on your DPM storage pool in this setup.

However there is a way to run a full SIS deployment on DPM, this is by installing DPM on top of Windows Storage Server. If you install DPM on a Windows Storage Server you’ll be able to use SIS for all data you store in your storage pool.

Here is the only article/documentation on installing DPM on Windows Storage Server:

http://www.itexpertmag.com/server/turn-dpm-and-windows-storage-server-into-an-appliance

Links regarding DPM supported on Windows Storage Server:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmsetup/thread/c2cf58c9-970a-45b2-bbe7-b096669f94e5/

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399021.aspx (Below in Community Content)

Here is a nice step by step guide by Sean O Farrell on How to use Hardware VSS Writers with DPM 2010.

https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid=525D35B4254479E8&resid=525D35B4254479E8!161

Sean’s blog: http://seanofarrelll.blogspot.com

Thanks for this guide Sean.

I needed to add a new server for protection to DPM. I went to install the agent on the server and it failed. I then went and attached the agent and then went to do a manual install of the agent on the server itself. When I got to the point of running SetDpmServer I got an error. This is the error I got:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin>SetDpmServer.exe -dpm
ServerName DPM.DOMAIN.com
Configuring dpm server settings and firewall settings for dpm server =[DPM.DOMAIN.com]
Configuring dpm server settings and firewall settings for dpm server =[DPM.DOMAIN.com]
SetDpmServer failed with errorcode =0×80004005, error says: Unspecified error
To further troubleshoot failures with SetDpmServer, go to  http://go.microsoft.c
om/fwlink/?LinkId=169142″

This error is not very helpful. This is what I did to fix it.

From an elevated command prompt stop the Windows firewall service by running:

• Net stop mpssvc

go ahead and run again

• SetDpmServer.exe -dpmServerName DPM.DOMAIN.com

start the Windows firewall again by running

• Net start mpssvc

You should be able to go back to the DPM admin console and see that your protected servers agent is “OK” now. This should work on DPM 07,10, and 2012.