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A deeper look into dBeamer!DPM for DPM 2010

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dBeamer!DPM is a third party tool that is added to your DPM to extend its functionality. dBeamer!DPM was made by a company called Instavia Software Inc. Instavia creates virtualization and availability tools. dBeamer!DPM can be used to add your DPM as a part of your High Availability (HA) infrastructure by increasing your RTO to near 0. dBeamer!DPM allows you to recover data even if your DPM services or DPM database is down and gives you the ability for the data to be used the minute it starts being restored.

We are going to take a look at dBeamer!DPM its capabilities and how to get this working with DPM. We are also going to test accessing a Hyper-V virtual machine while the virtual machine is being restored from DPM using dBeamer!DPM.

AT A GLANCE:

  • Overview of dBeamer
    • Overview of the technology behind dBeamer, what it does and how it works.
  • Overview of dBeamer!DPM.
  • Deployment of dBeamer!DPM
    • dBeamer!DPM install on DPM Server.
    • dBeamer install on a Protected Server.

  • Real world dBeamer!DPM test
    • Test recovery of Hyper-V virtual machine and use while it is running.

Overview of dBeamer

dBeamer is the technology underneath dBeamer!DPM. dBeamer uses an operation called BEAM that allows you to copy data such as files, folders, virtual machines and database to a different location and this data is made available instantly. Another example is that you could start a BEAM of a video and begin playing it while it is still copying over. So for example a user could start reading or modifying Microsoft Word documents or a live database while the data is still being copied. dBeamer BEAM technology works regardless of the size of data that you are copying.

dBeamer has a pause and resume operation to head of loss of data during a BEAM. For example if data is being beamed over a network and network connectivity is lost dBeamer will pause and then resume when connectivity is restored. dBeamer is integrated right into Microsoft windows through a windows explorer extension. dBeamer also has a scripting and command line tool so that you can automate the initiation of a BEAM operation.

You can start the dBeamer BEAM operation one of three ways:

1. Beaming right from Windows Explorer

2. Beaming from command shell

3. Using the dBeamer application itself

dBeamer runs on NTFS and requires 4GB RAM minimum to run. dBeamer uses a large amount of RAM to perform the BEAM operations and that is why there is a requirement of at least 4GB of ram. The more RAM that is allocated on machines that are beaming the better performance you will get. dBeamer is supported on these following operating systems:

· Windows 2003 with SP2 (x86 and x64)

· Windows 2003 R2 with SP2 (x86 and x64)

· Windows 2008 with SP2 (x86 and x64)

· Windows 2008 R2 (x64)

· Windows 7 (x86 and x64)

Enough about dBeamer itself let’s look at how this technology actually works. This is what happens when dBeamer performs a BEAM operation:

Step 1: A BEAM is initiated to copy data from one location to another.

Step 2: dBeamer creates a virtual local file view of the data that is being beamed on the destination.

Step 3: Once the virtual local file is completely created in the destination it can immediately be used.

Step 4: On the destination when portions of the data that is being Beamed is needed dBeamer then fetches the needed data blocks on demand allowing for continues access of data that has not even been transferred yet.

Step 5: dBeamer continues to simultaneously copy the data content in a sequential fashion without overwriting the modified contents of the virtual local file, once the BEAM is complete dBeamer stops and the data in the destination is completely beamed over as a whole.

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Mark Inactive Protected Data Active in DPM

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I have seen issues on DPM forums where others have recovered from DPM failures and their protected data becomes inactive or other issues such as the data suddenly becoming inactive on its own placing the data in a category named “Inactive protection for previously protected data”. It is not clear how to mark protected data … Read more

Backing up Applications with DPM

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We all know that DPM can protect basic Windows Servers 2003 through 2008 R2 including files, folders, and critical server components like system state and do BMR’s of servers. DPM can also protect Windows application specific workloads. I often see confusion or questions in forums about the applications that can be protected natively by DPM. In this post I will set out to list the applications DPM protects natively and list resources to other common applications and where to get the information on properly backing them up.

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Microsoft Dogfooding DPM

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I saw a post today on my friend Yegor’s blog about Microsoft converting their entire internal data protection to DPM 2010. Here is Yegor’s post: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&langpair=ru|en&u=http://ystartsev.wordpress.com It is good to see Microsoft "Drinking the Kool-Aid" by relying solely on DPM. There is some really good data in this case study and shows the true savings … Read more

Hyper-V Live Migration Not working

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I recently setup a Hyper-V cluster on Windows Server 2008 R2. Live Migration & failover would not work. Quick Migration would work. I also could only see the  CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) on one NODE at a time.  I then noticed this error in the cluster event logs: Cluster Shared Volume ‘Volume1’ (‘Cluster Disk 2’) … Read more

Protecting SharePoint 2010 with DPM 2010

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Original Post: http://sharepoint.mindsharpblogs.com/steve/archive/2011/06/02/Protecting-SharePoint-2010-with-DPM-2010.aspx

DPM 2010 is an optimal backup/restore application for SharePoint 2010. Here are a few reasons why DPM is a good solution for protecting SharePoint 2010:

  • DPM is aware that it’s backing up SharePoint. This means it knows about all the transactions that are occurring during backup and therefore you get a more consistent backup of the data.
  • DPM can protect SharePoint search.
  • Automatically protect new content databases when added to your SharePoint farm.
  • DPM is light with low I/O when it is backing up SharePoint getting only the changes during protection meaning your production environment will not take a performance hit.
  • DPM will let you perform item level restores of SharePoint objects such as SharePoint sites, documents, lists, and other objects.
  • One of the best reasons is that with the release of SharePoint 2010 a recovery farm is no longer required to perform restores, DPM 2010 takes full advantage of this feature so that you can perform a restore without a recovery farm right from DPM to your SharePoint.

Lets take a look at how you would start Protecting SharePoint 2010 with DPM 2010. Before you can backup SharePoint with DPM the configurations and prerequisites have to be met. We are going to cover these requirements as well as the steps to protect your SharePoint environments.

Here are the steps to start protecting your SharePoint environment.

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