Building Custom Reports in DPM

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The Need:

You need to get detailed reports on your Data Protection Manager. The reports that are included with DPM are not enough and do not contain the data that you need to report on.

The Solution:

There is a way to create custom reports for DPM. I am not a SQL guy and will never claim to be but I was still able to figure out how to generate custom reports for DPM thanks to Microsoft SQL reporting services. Let’s cover the process of doing this.

The DPM Report Views

Views are like tables in SQL in the way they look. Views can be considered virtual tables that pull data from multiple tables. They dynamically generate their data when the view is referenced. Someone typically will build a view for non-SQL users that do not know how to write SQL queries but need to pull data together.

Microsoft has included a bunch of SQL views in the DPM database by default. They included these so that DPM administrators could create custom reports. These Custom Report Views for DPM can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399120.aspx . On that link it will also describe what type of data each view will give you in your report. This is what the views look like and where they are stored in SQL management studio.

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These views need to be used by SQL Reporting Services to generate the custom DPM reports.

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DPM Error ID: 3180 Agent ownership required

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  SCENARIO: I started protection of my primary DPM server with a Secondary DPM server that I turned up. PROBLEM: My backups were failing with a Protection status of “Replica is inconsistent”. On the monitoring tab I was getting Error ID: 3180 DPM could not run the backup/recovery job on PRIMARYDPMSERVERNAME because it is managed … Read more

Restore Exchange 2007 using Windows Backup

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When I first started working with Exchange I could not find any information that lays out step by step or in an easy to follow format on how to backup and restore mailboxes in Exchange 2007 that have been backed up by Windows backup that comes with Server 2008. I went through the hassle of figuring out these steps. I want to share these 5 steps through this blog post. In this post we are working on Small Business Server 2008 so everything is on the same server.

1. RESTORE THE STORAGE GROUP FROM BACKUP

  • Launch Windows Backup. Click on Recover and restore your Exchange data to an alternate location. Be sure to document the location you restore to. This is going to restore your Exchange .edb and all the log files. The steps in the wizard are below in the form of screen shots.

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Blue Screen of Death when booting Hyper-V VHD in VirtualBox

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 I had some virtual machines running on Hyper-V. I wanted to run some of these on VirtualBox for mobility reasons. VirtualBox supports running Virtual Machines from VmWare or Hyper-V. VirtualBox can boot VHD’s (Virtual Hard Disks) directly. You do not need to convert the virtual hard drive format. I copied the VHD’s too %systemdrive%:\Users\USERNAME\.VirtualBox\HardDisks on … Read more

How to set up a backup plan for your Windows Server

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One of the most important tasks for a systems admin is that of backing up data to protect against loss. A well thought out backup plan can help ensure that all eventualities are covered and that your company can continue operating no matter what kind of disaster may occur. There are several aspects you should incorporate into your backup plan. This article should help guide you on how it’s done, regardless of what software or hardware solution you use.

  • Identify what to back up

If you want to back up everything then you are going to need plenty of tapes, or perhaps a disk backup system, and much more time than you’re likely to afford. Focus instead on the critical data that cannot be recreated and that the business cannot do without. Rank it by priority so that if you need to restore, you would know what to restore first. Create a spreadsheet or a table and review it with the business stakeholders and data owners to ensure that everyone agrees with what is being backed up and in what order it should be restored.

  • Identify when to back it up

Backups take time, consume bandwidth and may have problems with open files. Businesses with large databases, or whose operations run around the clock, may not be able to complete a full backup given an entire weekend. Set up multiple schedules based on the business schedule. Plan database backups around other activities like indexing, and ensure that maintenance windows work around the backup schedule.

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Move Exchange Stores & logs to a Different Disk

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This blog is for those that have your Exchange stores and logs on the C drive and the c drive on your server is running out of space. You know you need to move them but you don’t know how. Well I will cover this in this blog step by step below.

NOTE: Here are a couple of things to note before going further:

  1. If your server is running out of space on the C drive check all possible areas and be sure Exchange is the culprit before moving its components around.
  2. Do not jump on the server and start manually deleting log files.
  3. This post is to be used before your disk is full or after you have recovered from a full disk disaster. If your disk is completely full now visit this link How to Recover from “Disk Full” on an Exchange Log Drive once you have cleared some space come back to this blog to move the log files and database store.
  4. Make sure you have a good backup of Exchange before following these steps.
  5. Use the below steps at your own risk.

MOVING THE DATABASE:

First off we are going to use the Move wizards in this post for both the logs and databases move. Using the wizards will simplify these tasks  and we like to keep things simple. If you would prefer to do this in PowerShell see the link at the end of this blog post.

  • Open “Exchange Management Console”.
  • Expand “Server Configuration”>Select “Mailbox” .
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  • You should now see the “Database Management” tab in the lower center console.
  • Right click on each of the Storage groups and click “Move Database Path”.
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  • Record the “Database file paths”.
  • Go to your new drive that you are going to move the store to and create a folder to move it to. I recommend that you create a similar path (folder structure) to the folder you are moving your store to. EXAMPLE: %newdrive%\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Mailbox\First Storage Group\.
  • No go back into “Exchange Management Console”>”Server Configuration”>“Mailbox”.
  • In the lower center console right click on the Storage group you want to move and click “Move Database Path”
  • Click the browse button and select the path to the folder you created in the previous step.
  • Once you have selected the path click the “Move” button.

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Remove a computer from System Center Essentials 2010 that is no longer available

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So we all have run into this or done it at one point. You decommission a server or workstation and forget to uninstall agents that where on that system. Well System Center Essentials installs an agent on your Windows server and or clients. So now your managed computer has been removed from the domain but the SCE 2010 agent still shows it in the console. How do you remove it? The SCE 2010 agent can be manually deleted from the SCE 2010 console to do this follow these steps:

  • Open the SCE 2010 Console:
  • Go to Administration space:

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Scan a file using multiple anti-virus engines

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I came across a site called www.virustotal.com. This site lets you upload a suspicious file to be scanned by multiple virus engines. This is a great tool. I have learned that not any one anti-malware or anti-virus program can catch all viruses. This is the best way to check out a suspicious file without loading multiple anti-virus programs on a computer. Yes this site is completely free and that is why I wanted to share it. This is from the site itself:

VirusTotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs enabling the identification of viruses, worms, trojans and other kinds of malicious content detected by antivirus engines and web analysis toolbars.

  • Free, independent service.
  • Runs multiple antivirus engines.
  • Real time automatic updates of virus signatures.
  • Detailed results from each antivirus engine.
  • Runs multiple web site inspection toolbars.
  • Real time global statistics.

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    Here is a list of the virus engines that Virus Total uses when it scans:

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    Install and Configure System Center Essentials 2010 Part 1

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    ~ How to Install System Center Essentials 2010 ~

    I recently had the opportunity to setup Microsoft System Center Essentials (SCE 2010) in my network environment. Microsoft System Center Essentials is a management solution for small to mid sized business network environments. It is a combination of a few System Center products including Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, and Virtual Machine Manager. It also includes windows update services. This solutions puts all of these solutions in one interface so an IT professional can efficiently manage their IT environment from physical and virtual servers to clients and other network devices. In this two part post I am going to walk through installing SCE 2010 and some basic configuration.

    Software Used:

    Below is the list of software you will need for your deployment.

    • OS is Windows Server 2008 R2
    • SQL Server 2008 R2
    • System Center Essentials 2010

    Install of SQL:

    First thing we need to do is install SQL server. SCE 2010 has a database on the backend and you need somewhere to store this.

    You can use a local SQL instance or a remote SQL instance on an existing SQL server. I will walk you through installing this on the same server you will install SCE2010 on.

    • Launch your SQL install and click next on the “Setup Support Rules” and “Setup Role” screens accept the defaults.
    • You will then come to the “Feature Selection” screen select the same features as the image below.

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    • You can chose to use the default instance. SQL will give it a name for you. I like to use named instances. Chose one of the options and click next.

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