Ask the Core Team : DPM

DPM 2007 - Troubleshooting protection for Hyper-V

tomac — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:22:03 GMT

This post is about Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role installed, that are being protected by System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. There may be one or many Virtual Machines on each Host/Parent Partition, and they may be running Windows 2003 and/or Windows 2008. Supposing the DPM Agent is installed only on the Host/Parent partition of the Hyper-V server, you may find that DPM jobs fail intermittently on the 2003 VM’s, but the 2008 VM’s successfully complete. The following error may be encountered:

Type: Recovery point
Status: Failed
Description: DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details:
Unknown error (0x800423f3) (0x800423F3))
End time: 4/23/2009 3:37:22 PM
Start time: 4/23/2009 3:36:38 PM
Time elapsed: 00:00:44
Data transferred: 0 MB
Cluster node -
Recovery Point Type Express Full
Source details: \Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\%ServerName%
Protection group: %ProtectionGroupName%

We found these jobs fail when the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS service) on the guest VM is in a “Stopping” state and the only way to get the service in a good condition is to kill the process or reboot the VM. If the VSS service is in this “Stopping” state the next DPM job will fail. But if you first verify the VSS service is in a correct state (running or stopped) the DPM job will run successfully. However, once the DPM job is done you may see the VSS service stuck in the “Stopping” state. This service should automatically stop after 3 minutes of idle time but intermittently it may not stop. We experienced this behavior across several Hosts and almost all VM’s in a particular environment. The behavior is random but a few VM’s experience the problem more frequently than others. We also noticed if the VM is rebooted it will likely work without issues for a few days before the problem re-occurs.

When using vssadmin Windows Server command (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754968(WS.10).aspx), it appeared the “Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer” on the host was in a “Failed” state with a “Retryable” Last error state when the job fails. Ordinarily the writer will show a “Stable” state, and “No error” as follows.

When the jobs fail, the above command will return:

Writer name: 'Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer'
Writer Id: {66841cd4-6ded-4f4b-8f17-fd23f8ddc3de}
Writer Instance Id: {59f449f9-2413-494d-b679-965bc56129fd}
State: [8] Failed
Last error: Retryable error

After installing Service Pack 2 for Windows 2008, or hotfix KB967560 (see Resolution section below) and running another DPM job on a different VM that has the VSS service in a non-stopping state, the job will run succesfully and place the Hyper-V VSS Writer back into a “Stable” state.

Quick reference for different possible scenarios:

VM in good state + Host in good state = Good backup
VM in bad state + Host in good state = Failed backup
VM in bad state + Host in bad state = Failed job
VM in good state + Host in bad state = Good job

Another possible symptom, when a DPM job is running you may notice on the Hyper-V Management screen next to the VM it displays this message: “Creating VSS Snapshot Set…”. This will continue to be displayed and when looking at the Volume Shadow Copy Service inside the W2K3 VM you may notice the service is stopped. Additionally, when running “vssadmin list writers” on the Host a message is displayed but no writers are visible:

“Waiting for responses. These may be delayed if a shadow copy is being prepared.”

When this condition occurs you may not be able cancel the DPM job. When trying to cancel the DPM job you may get the following in the detailed pane:

Type: Recovery point
Status: Attempting to cancel
End time: -
Start time: 4/28/2009 10:00:21 AM
Time elapsed: 01:01:22
Data transferred: -
Cluster node -
Recovery Point Type Express Full
Source details: \Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\%Servername%
Protection group: %ProtectionGroupName%

Looking in the System Event log on the W2K3 VM during the times when the DPM jobs failed it may be clean. But the Application event log may be filled with the VSS errors below:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VSS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 8193
Date: 2/24/2009
Time: 8:46:34 AM
User: N/A
Computer: %SystemName%
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine IEventSystem::Store. hr = 0x80040206.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VSS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 12302
Date: 2/24/2009
Time: 5:58:49 AM
User: N/A
Computer: %SystemName%
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: An internal inconsistency was detected in trying to contact shadow copy service writers. Please check to see that the Event Service and Volume Shadow Copy Service are operating properly.

When viewing the System and Application event logs on the DPM server neither have any entries for the same times as the job failures. But the DPM event log may have the following entry:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DPM-EM
Event Category:None
Event ID: 2
Date: 2/19/2009
Time: 9:20:20 AM
User: N/A
Computer: %DPMServername%
Description:
Creation of recovery points for Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\%ProtectedServerName-VM% on %HOSTName% have failed. The last recovery point creation failed for the following reason: (ID: 3159) DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID: 30112)
DPM ID: 2^|^%DPMServername%^|^Recovery point creation failures^|^DPM^|^Backup^|^%HOSTName% ^|^a48c6c91-f4ae-4ed3-b5da-a3c22d980a48

RESOLUTION

The Hyper-v issue seems to be the result of the underlying state of VSS. VSS is hung in the "stopping" state because the registry writer is hung attempting to unregister a COM+ event subscription. This is a subscription for listening for COM messages from other VSS components. When analyzing the logs captured during the problem it was found the unsubscribe function had been waiting eight minutes when the trace ended (and still had not completed).

It could be that the machine is having COM issues. The VSS service is not going to be successful with processing subsequent jobs until this unsubscribe completes. If you experience any of the symptoms mentioned above, you should perform all of the action items noted below.

Action Item #1:

Verify all the Prerequisites are met for protecting Hyper-V with DPM:

Prerequisites and Known Issues with Hyper-V Protection
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd347840.aspx

Action Item #2:

Online backups are not possible if any of the following conditions are not met. Verify that all the W2K3 VM’s meet these requirements:

1. Hyper-V Integration components is installed and is running the latest version

NOTE: (On the Host/Parent partition you can check VMMS.exe = 6.0.6001.22352 (or newer) and in the guest, check vmbus.sys version 6.0.6001.22334 (or newer)

2. No Dynamic disks inside the guest.

3. All volumes are NTFS

4. All NTFS volumes must be >1GB and have >300MB free space.

5. Shadow copies within the VM are on the same volume or are Disabled

6. VM is in running state.

NOTE: Offline Backups of Windows 2000 Guest VMs fail. Cause: A synthetic SCSI Controller was configured for the VM with no drives attached. Windows 2000 Guests do not support the SCSI Controller, so it is not needed.

Action Item #3:

The root cause of symptoms noted in the Problem section appear to be COM related. After verifying the action items above install the following COM updates:

KB934016 "Availability of Windows Server 2003 Post-Service Pack 2 COM+ 1.5 Hotfix Rollup Package 12"

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;934016

KB965230 "FIX: The COM+ Event System does not deliver timely or reliable statistics to subscribers of the IComTrackingInfoEvents event interface in Windows Server 2003"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;965230

KB968447 "The COM+ Event System stops processing the query for matching subscriptions when it detects a corrupted subscription on a Windows Server 2003-based computer"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;968447

Action Item #4:

Install the following two W2K3 VSS updates on the W2K3 virtual machines:

KB940349 “Availability of a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) update rollup package for Windows Server 2003 to resolve some VSS snapshot issues”

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;940349

KB969219 “RPC 0x800706ba and 0x800706bf errors occur when backup software tries to create VSS shadow copies on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 SP2”
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;969219

Install the latest VSS/Volsnap update on the W2K3 VM’s. If the Host is also running W2K3 it will be a good idea to also install:
KB967551 “Rollup update for the volsnap.sys driver in Windows Server 2003”
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;967551

Action Item #5:

If possible, install W2K8 SP2 since it will include the most recent Hyper-V writer updates. But, there are situations where installing SP2 will not be an option. As an alternative you can install KB967560 and KB971394 on the Windows Server 2008 Host machine.

KB967560 update is more recent then KB959978 which does address a known issue when you run a Windows Server 2003-based virtual machine on a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V-based computer:

KB967560 “A backup operation fails on a two-node failover cluster that is running Windows Server 2008 after one of the disk resources is moved”

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;967560

KB971394 "A backup of virtual machines fails when you use the Hyper-V VSS writer to back up virtual machines concurrently on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;971394

How to obtain the latest service pack for Windows Server 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968849

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Virtualization with Hyper-V: Supported Guest Operating Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-supported-guest-os.aspx

Author:
Tom O’Malley
Microsoft Enterprise Support
Sr. Support Escalation Engineer

Technorati Tags: Data Protection Manager 2007,Hyper-V,Windows Server 2008

Introduction to SharePoint Search Indexes for DPM Administrators

jeffhugh — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:49:00 GMT

This blog introduces the basics of SharePoint Search capabilities to DPM Administrators. Initially, it may be a bit confusing as to why a DPM blog would contain information about how to setup and configure another technology’s software. In protecting this data using DPM, it is necessary to have an understanding of how the protected application is installed and configured. This is especially true with regards to Search Index database protection.

By the conclusion of this short series of blogs, you will have a greater understanding of why knowing a bit about the applications that DPM protects helps in their protection, recovery, and maintenance.

Why 2 versions of Search

Since DPM offers the capability to protect both WSS Search and MOSS Search, let’s take a moment to understand the difference before we dive into the set up and configuration aspects.

First, let’s discuss the basics of what a Search Index server used for. This is the same principal as how the Internet works. Websites are “crawled” (queried for their contents) and a reference to their content is then stored in a database. Think of this as you would an index to a book. From a SharePoint perspective, this allows user to location content in the farm without knowing where the content actually resides.

“Office SharePoint Server 2007” provides two search services: “Office SharePoint Server Search” and “Windows SharePoint Services Help Search”. Each of these services can be used to crawl, index, and query content, and each service uses a separate index.

The “Office SharePoint Server Search” service is based on the search service that is provided with earlier versions of “SharePoint Products & Technologies”, but with many improvements. You should use the “Office SharePoint Server Search” service to crawl and index all content that you want to be searchable (other than the Help system).

The “Windows SharePoint Services Help Search” service is the same service provided by “Windows SharePoint Services 3.0”, although in “Windows SharePoint Services 3.0” it is called the “Windows SharePoint Services Search” service. “Windows SharePoint Services 3.0” uses this service to index site content, index “Help” content, and service queries.

Installing a Search Index Server

The installation of a server for Search is the same as with any other SharePoint server. Use the “Advanced” option during installation and add it to an existing farm. The piece that defines the server as a Search server is found in the “Central Administration” website under “Operations” and “Services on Server”

An example of this screen is shown below for your convenience.

After clicking on the “Start” action, a wizard is displayed where you will need to specify some basic configuration information. In this wizard, you will make selections on which WFE’s (Web Front-End server) will be used to crawl the content of sites in the SharePoint farm and add their content references to its index.

As part of the configuration, you will also need to create a database for the index references to be stored. This is also done from within the Central Administration website.

Below is a screenshot of the information that must be specified when creating the database. When creating the database, be sure to give it a name that makes it easy to identify its purpose.

With the content database created, we need to look at the creation of a Shared Services Provider.

Shared Services Provider (SSP) Configuration

Once the services have been configured on the Search Index server and are running, you are down to the last step. An SSP (Shared Services Provider) must be created as this is the SharePoint object that has the crawling functionality in it.

We will start by creating the Shared Services Provider by clicking on the Shared Services Administration link on the left side from within the Central Administration website’s main page.

Begin by clicking on the New SSP link as seen below by the pointer.

This opens a new page where you will specify the configuration information needed for SharePoint to create the provider. A database is also needed for this so make sure that the database name is clear as to its purpose. Once the necessary information has been provided, click on the “OK” button at the bottom to allow SharePoint to create the provider.

Once complete, you should see a page like the following indicating that you have successfully created a Shared Services Provider.

Now, we need to figure out how to crawl the sites in the farm.

SSP Crawl Configuration

When the Shared Services Administration page opens for this SSP, click on the Search administration link under the Search section to begin the crawl configuration.

When the Search Administration window appears, notice that the Items in index value is ‘0’ which is expected as this SSP was just set up and has not yet been configured. Under the Crawling section on the left, click on the Content sources link to start the configuration.

This will bring up the Manage Content Sources window.

After the Manage Content Sources window appears, there should only be a single entry in the list titled Local Office SharePoint Server sites. Click on this link as this is what will need to be configured in order to make this SSP useful.

At the top of the configuration page titled Edit Content Source, you have the option of changing the name to something more suitable. This is an optional entry.

If there are other site addresses that you would like this SSP to crawl, enter them in the box as seen below. If you are unsure of the URLs of the SharePoint sites, there is an alternate location that we will discuss in a few steps that will set this up for you. You will only need to select radio buttons based on a list of sites.

Here, the settings begin to get more impactful. In the Crawl Settings section, choose one of the two radio buttons which essentially allow you to filter on whether the content is SharePoint in nature or not. Choosing the Crawl everything… radio button allows the crawl to capture the maximum amount of data but also opens up the searches to additional content that you may not be expecting. For a test environment, this is the best solution as long as none of your SharePoint sites contain external site references on the Internet as the crawl will catalog the Internet data as well.

The last settings to make are for scheduling when the crawls will take place on the sites selected. Selecting the Create schedule links under the Full Crawl and Incremental Crawl sections will allow for a modest configuration schedule.

Each Create schedule link will open the following window offering multiple types with multiple settings for each. In a lab-style environment, these can be quite lenient with longer intervals. If you are testing or working in a rapidly updating environment, then a shorter interval is recommended.

Click on OK to accept the schedule you have configured and then fill in the Start full crawl of this content source checkbox so that when you click OK, the initial crawl will begin.

Depending upon how much configuration and modification you have done to the sites specified in the crawl list, the crawl should run in just a few minutes. The Status field should show Crawling Full when the page is initially drawn. You can monitor the page or you can leave it and continue with your SharePoint work. Once the initial crawl is complete however a Search site should be setup, if it has not already been added, so that you can test the index information for accuracy.

Creating Crawl Rules

A short configuration step to take is to include the paths and authentication accounts for crawling. To reopen the crawl rules, click on the Crawl rules link under the Crawling section on the left side of the SSP’s Search Administration page.

Since this is a newly created SSP, there will be no rules. Click on the New Crawl Rule link to create rules for this SSP.

There are 3 sections to be configured here and the following shows a test configuration that works. For simplicity, use these settings and click on OK to complete the configuration.

The Manage Crawl Rules page should return pretty quickly to let you know what configuration has been made. The crawl that you ran should be done by now as well.

Working under the premise that the crawl has been completed, a return to the Search Administration site should display entries like the following. Observe that the Items in index field now has a non-zero value indicating that there are entries in the index.

To supplement the high-level overview of the steps covered here, a video has been provided that will guide you from start to finish.

Video

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Vic Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

SharePoint Content DB Mirroring for DPM Administrators

jeffhugh — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:59:58 GMT

In this blog post, we will cover the mirroring of an existing SharePoint content database using SQL Server 2005. We will also discuss some basics of Search Index Servers in a SharePoint farm. The objective is to provide a light-weight cursory knowledge of how to setup and configure these two aspects of the SharePoint farm. This will not be a detailed blog covering endless situations but a DPM Administrator-oriented post in preparation for protecting these data sources using DPM 2007 SP1.

Subsequent blogs in this series will cover Protecting mirrored SharePoint databases, handling failovers of mirrored SharePoint databases, recovering mirrored SharePoint databases and a couple of posts on protecting and recovering Search Index databases.

Periodically, there will also be short video demonstrations provided to round out the blog topic. Additional information and greater detail about the various ways to mirror SharePoint databases can be found online at http://technet.microsoft.com.

Mirroring a SharePoint Content Database

In our demonstration, we will be mirroring a single configuration database that is in a farm with several other content databases. There is no limitation stating that all content databases in a farm must be mirrored. There is flexibility in which content databases you choose to mirror and which will be left un-mirrored. We will take an existing content database and go through the steps of mirroring it across a SQL 2005 Failover cluster and a stand-alone SQL Server.

We created the content database “WSS_Content_8100” for a new “team docs” site we were going to build. You see it highlighted below in the list of databases on this cluster from within “SQL Management Studio” console.

Having seen the database that we are going to mirror, let’s go back to the Central Administration web site for SharePoint and prepare to mirror the content database. Under the Application tab, choose the link Content Database so that the Manage Content Databases page appears as shown below.

Under the Database Name field is a link to the Manage Content Database Settings page for the database whose name appears there. In our example, the WSS_Content_8100 database name appears there and when we click on that link, it will bring us to the screen we see below.

In the Database Information section at the top, note the Database status is likely set to Ready as this is the default setting. Before we mirror this content database, we need to change this to Offline so that no new site collections can be added to this content database while we are setting up the mirror.

This is the only change we are going to make so scroll down to the bottom of the page and click OK to commit the change. When it completes, the Database Status should now appear as Stopped.

Now that the SharePoint side of the configuration has been made, we will proceed to the SQL Management Studio side to begin the process of mirroring the database.

If you have not already seen the blog “SQL Database Mirroring for DPM Administrators”, now would be good time to jump over and review it. Since the steps on mirroring a database are the same as mirroring a SharePoint content database from this perspective, the steps will not be duplicated here.

Once the database has been mirrored and failover has been confirmed to work, you can now return the Database Status to Ready as shown above.

When mirroring has been setup on the database, you will see a configuration like the following in SQL Management Studio.

As long as the Principal server is the same as the server on which the content database originated, you and your users should be able to see the content in any sites within the Web Applications that use that content database.

Testing Failover of the Mirrored Database

Now that the database has been mirrored, it is time to test failover of the mirror to confirm that the data is still accessible to SharePoint users.

From SQL Management Studio, failover the database from the Mirroring page in the database properties. Refresh the SQL Management Studio view to confirm that the Principal role is now held by the other server in the mirroring partnership.

Now navigate to a well-known page in a site whose information is stored in the newly mirrored content database. Refresh the page and the following error should be returned. The URL doesn’t mention anything about the SQL2k5-CLU SQL instance so there is no clue there. The only indication that we get is at the end of the message where it states “…make sure the database server is running.”

It indicates a database issue.

Note: This configuration change coming up only needs to be performed on a single WFE (Web Front-End) server and not every WFE in the farm. Anytime a mirrored content database is failed over, make this change on one WFE server to restore user connectivity to the content.

To correct our user access issue so that they are able to view the previously accessible content, we will need to go back to the Manage Content Databases page and click on the Database Name object for the database that we just failed over.

Scroll straight to the bottom, check the Remove content database and commit the change.

When you click on the Remove content database checkbox, the following message is displayed. Consider this: users are not able to access the content anyway because the database is not accessible on the SQL instance where it is expected to be. Taking this action is required in order to restore user access.

Click on OK knowing that this is the right thing to do.

Tip: At the top of the page is the database name and the SQL server name. Copy the database name to the buffer\clipboard so you avoid any typing mistakes. You may want to copy and paste this and the database server both to Notepad for future reference.

Now click on OK at the bottom of the page and allow SharePoint to remove the entry.

Now that the Manage Content Databases page is empty, we can add the entry back in. Click on the Add a content database link near the top after confirming that the Web Application in the list on the right is the correct one.

When the Add Content Database page appears, enter the name of the SQL Server where the current Principal role for the database mirror resides. Now tab down and enter in the content database name for the mirrored database. Once these are done, scroll down and click on OK to commit these entries.

The WSS_Content_8100 database should now appear as seen in the screen shot below with a Started status. This is what you need to do from the SharePoint side to restore user connectivity. Now it is time to verify user access to the content.

Back to our IE session at this point to verify if the web content is accessible.

In some cases, the addition of the content database will error out. DO NOT PANIC!! The link just above the Error will redirect you back to the Manage Content Databases page. Click on this and confirm that the WSS_Content_8100 entry is still there. Also, check to see that the database is using the SQL2k5-MirrorA server (based on our example) and not the original. If these things check out and the page is accessible by users, this Error can be ignored.

Congratulations! You have successfully mirrored a SharePoint content database using SQL 2005. Having this understanding of a technology that DPM protects, even to such a basic level, will be a great help when working these types of issues.

Summary

This blog covered the steps necessary to take a functional SharePoint content database that resides on a SQL 2005 installation and mirror it using SQL Database Mirroring. Also discussed was how to stabilize a SharePoint site when the content database it is a part of is failed over from one server to the other.

The video included with this blog demonstrates the steps outlined here. This is provided to help reinforce the steps discussed and provide quick reference for future configurations.

Video

Victor Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Recovery of a Mirrored SQL Database

jeffhugh — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:52:55 GMT

Recovering a mirrored database, whether it is to a SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 installation, requires that the existing mirror be broken. For simplicity, you may want to consider deleting both the Principal and Mirror databases and using the latest recovery point that DPM has in order to restore the data.

This blog post is geared towards a simple database mirroring recovery scenario and doesn’t discuss the replaying of transaction logs as part of the recovery process. As with any blog post, if there is additional information you would like to see provided or questions you would like to see answered, please pass those comments and questions along so that we can consider those for future posts.

This blog also includes a video demonstration of the recovery process involved in recovering a mirrored SQL database.

In our scenario, we will work under the premise that a bad transaction has been posted to the database and replicated without any means of backing it out cleanly. Now we have to restore the database to the servers and establish mirroring again. We will not consider the restoration complete until DPM is able to create a new recovery point after the restoration. This is a standard measure used to define when a recovery has been completed successfully.

Considering the scenario we have described, let’s begin.

In the screenshot below, we see that we have database corruption which needs to be recovered.

We begin by opening the properties of the Principal database and going to the Mirroring page. On the right side of the page is a button titled “Remove Mirroring”. Click on this button and confirm the selection by clicking on the “Yes” button in the following dialog to remove mirroring. After mirroring has been removed, you will be able to begin the restoration process.

If mirroring is left enabled, then DPM will fail on the restore with a detailed error message indicating that mirroring is still enabled and must be removed before the restore can be completed successfully.

With mirroring broken, delete both copies of the database on the Principal and Mirror servers. During the restore, you will decide which will be the Principal and which will be the Mirror based on how the restore to each server is performed.

With each database deleted, begin the recovery process by navigating to the Recovery tab in the DPM Admin console and selecting the recovery point you wish to restore. When the “Specify Database State” page of the Recovery Wizard appears, you will have the option here to choose whether this server will be the Principal or the Mirror.

In the screen shot below, you will note that the “Leave database operational” radio button has been selected which indicates that the server selected will become the Principal server.

Before you start the recovery to the Mirror server, you must make sure that you are recovering using the same recovery point that was used for the Principal server’s recovery. If not, you will receive errors when attempting to establish mirroring between the two copies of the database.

When the recovery has progressed far enough along that you can begin another recovery, you can start the Mirror database recovery. In the “Specify Database State” page of the Recovery Wizard, make sure that you choose the radio button for “Leave database non-operational but able to restore additional transaction logs”. This will restore the database with the “Restore with NoRecovery” option enabled. As you recall from the blog on establishing a database mirror, this is a requirement when seeding the Mirror server.

This radio button helps to minimize the number of steps involved in the recovery process.

Once both of the restores have been completed and the Principal and Mirror database servers have the same copy of the database restored, you should verify that the necessary data has been restored to the server. If the expected data is still missing, you may need to consider restoring from a different recovery point.

If there are additional transactions that need to be replayed, consider creating the mirror and then replaying the transactions so that SQL will replicate them on the fly to the mirror.

With the data having been restored to both servers, now it is time to run the “Database Mirroring Wizard” from within SQL Server on the Principal server and setup mirroring on the database. Once mirroring has been established, you have completed the portion of the data restore that your users are concerned about.

You have not completed the restore from a DPM perspective, however. There is still an additional step to consider.

Since the database was recovered to its original location, DPM will not be able to create any additional Recovery Points until a consistency check has been run on the database. Once this consistency check has completed successfully, a new recovery point will be created.

From the DPM perspective, this newly created recovery point confirms the successful completion of the mirrored database recovery.

Summary

In recovering a mirrored database, the mirror must be broken first. After the mirror has been broken, the same recovery point must be used when populating the Principal and Mirror servers.

After the restore has been completed and the data verified, the mirror can then be recreated. Before DPM can continue to protect the mirrored database, a consistency check will need to be run. Once complete, a new recovery point will have been created and DPM will be able to continue protecting the mirrored database moving forward.

Video

Vic Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Protecting Mirrored Databases with DPM 2007 SP1

jeffhugh — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:48:08 GMT

Considering the vast amount of mission critical data stored on SQL servers globally, the high availability of database mirroring with the frequent snapshots of DPM make protection and recovery scenarios much less fearful for administrators entrusted with protected SQL data.

Database mirroring protection can be thought of as a blend between SQL Failover Clusters and stand-alone SQL Servers. As with SQL Clusters, DPM is able to follow the database as it is failed over from one node to another. At the same time, DPM still provides the same level of protection scheduling options and recoverability as it does with stand-alone SQL databases. DPM is also capable of protecting a mirrored database when it is encrypted, via the use of certificates, or if the mirroring configuration spans domains or even forests.

Since we have a fundamental understanding of database mirroring based on the blog “SQL Database Mirroring for DPM Administrators”, let’s dive in and discuss what is needed to protect a mirrored database.

There are videos available for viewing as supplements to this blog which demonstrate the protection of a mirrored database which spans a Windows Failover Cluster on the Principal side and the Mirror server as a stand-alone SQL server. Another video covers a basic database mirror across a pair of stand-alone SQL Servers, while the third demonstrates what happens when a protected database is mirrored after protection has been running for some time.

Establishing Protection

When establishing protection of a SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 mirrored database, you will need to confirm that the DPM Agent has been installed on both the Principal and Mirrored servers. This is a requirement in order to implement protection. If one side of the mirror is a Windows Failover Cluster, then both nodes of the cluster and the SQL Mirror server must all have the DPM agent installed.

In the following example, we will protect the AdventureWorks database which has been mirrored across a stand-alone server and a 2-node failover cluster. All 3 servers involved have the DPM agent installed already.

As we see in the Create Protection Group wizard, the datasources for the cluster as well as the stand-alone server have been displayed. Notice that text has been appended to the name of the AdventureWorks database which tells which physical or virtual server the database mirror extends to.

Continue through the wizard setting up the disk and tape protection, the retention range, synchronization frequency, etc., until the wizard completes. At that point, the initial replica of the protected data will be taken if you have chosen the appropriate option in the Choose Replica Creation Method page of the wizard.

After a period of time, the Protection Status in the Protection tab will show OK for the newly created protection group. DPM is now able to protect the mirrored database you have selected. As with all things however, the database will not remain on the current Principal server for the remainder of eternity. So what happens when there is a failover of the mirror and the mirroring roles are switched?

Immediately, there will be no indication that DPM has a problem protecting the database. If the mirrored database fails back to the original node before the next recovery point or sync is run, then DPM will continue protecting the data source as if nothing happened. If the database is on a different server than expected by DPM, then DPM will fail to successfully create a recovery point.

The error will be specific in its detail and will read like the following.

Error 32015: DPM is unable to continue protecting the selected database because DPM detected a mirroring session failover for this database.

Recommended action: Run a synchronization job with consistency check.

Simply running a consistency check will take care of the problem and future recovery points should complete successfully. If the failover occurs and there is no one able to get to the server to force a consistency check within 30 minutes after the failure, DPM will automatically run one. This can be seen in the Monitoring tab of the DPM Admin Console under the Jobs tab. Look for the failed Recovery Point job that was run after a mirrored database failover. Look for a Consistency Check (CC) job to run 30 minutes later on the same data source. When that CC runs to completion, a Recovery Point will be created as well. This can be verified by reviewing the available Recovery Point in the Recovery tab for that data source.

Changes in State

In situations where a protected database’s mirrored status changes, DPM will not be able to create a Recovery Point until you stabilize the data source because DPM will detect the change in state. Anytime a database goes from non-mirrored to mirrored or vice versa, the data source will need to be removed and added to the protection group again.

The reason is that during the creation of the protection group, DPM scans the server on which the database resides to see if it is mirrored or clustered with other servers. Because of the enabling or disabling of mirroring on the database, DPM will need to either add or remove dependent servers from the database in question.

Once the SQL datasource has been updated and added to the protection group, the Initial Replication will run and a new recovery point will be created. A word of caution: when reviewing the recovery points for the database after a change in mirroring state has been made, you will see two entries for the same database and each will have recovery points available for restore.

DPM does not distinguish in the Recovery tab between the recovery point copies that were and were not mirrored.

Videos

Summary

In this blog, we discussed how to protect a mirrored database and how to stabilize DPM’s protection of the mirrored data source when failover occurs and we discussed what happens when mirroring is enabled or disabled on an already protected database. Take a look at the included video content for a demonstration of the actions covered here.

Vic Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

SQL Database Mirroring for DPM Administrators

jeffhugh — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:44:56 GMT

This blog focuses on providing a very light-weight overview of how to implement SQL database mirroring and it is not intended to be a complete how-to reference. DPM administrators benefit by understanding, even at a basic level, how to install and configure the applications DPM will be protecting. This blog is intended to provide some of that knowledge as a starting point.

A video demonstration is provided to help guide you through the database mirroring scenario.

Need to Know

Support for SQL Database mirroring was introduced with SQL 2005 SP1. Before that, it was not a supported feature in SQL Server 2005.

Before implementing database mirroring, you must confirm that the Recover Model of the database is set to FULL. Full is the only recovery model that mirroring supports. The Full recovery model provides the normal database maintenance model for databases where durability of transactions is necessary.
Log backups are also required. This model fully logs all transactions and retains the transaction log records until after they are backed up. The full recovery model allows a database to be recovered to the point of failure, assuming that the tail of the log can be backed up after the failure. The full recovery model also supports restoring individual data pages.
For more information, see Backup Under the Full Recovery Model.

SQL Server credentials must match across the servers involved in the mirror or credentials must be provided during the configuration of the mirrored database. In the example which follows, we will work under the premise that the SQL Server service accounts on all servers involved are using the same credentials.

If the mirror will span multiple domains, then Certificates will need to be implemented. Since the purpose of this blog is to provide DPM administrators with a cursory understanding of how to implement mirroring, the use of certificates will not be covered here.

When seeding the mirrored database, the recovery of the database must be done using the (RESTORE WITH NORECOVERY) option. This option leaves the database in a read-only mode to users but allows the Principal SQL Server to still restore transactions to the mirrored copy. SQL Administrators will not be able to pull up the properties of the mirrored database while in this configuration.

Witness servers are a feature that allows SQL to detect failures and automatically failover a database. Without a witness server (which is a 3^rd SQL server distinct from the Principal and Mirror servers) manual failover is the only way to switch the mirror roles.

With the release of SQL Server 2008, a new feature is supported in SQL Server called ‘FileStream’. SQL Database Mirroring does not support this feature and if configured, a detailed error will appear during the creation of the mirror.

Mirroring a Database

The mirroring process between SQL 2005 and 2008 has enough over-lap that we can cover one, in this case mirroring of a SQL 2005 database, and still have a sound enough understanding of how a SQL Server 2008 database can be mirrored using the same steps. For this reason, we will cover the SQL 2005 database mirroring process. Further details can be found in the SQL Server section of the TechNet web site at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb545450.aspx.

Mirroring AdventureWorks

As with any database that will be mirrored, start by opening the properties and setting the Recovery Mode to “Full”, if it is not already.

Once this has been set, you will now need to make a backup of the database. Make sure it is a Full backup and for convenience, make sure that you are not using the Append option so that the BAK file size is minimized and the restore is less confusing.

On the mirror server, you will need to restore the backup of the database that you just made as part of the seeding process.

Make sure that when you perform the restore that you choose the middle radio button as shown below. If the restore is performed without the “RESTORE WITH NORECOVERY” option, SQL will not be able to setup mirroring between the two servers.

Now that the mirror server has a copy of the database restored to it, go to the Principal server and begin the mirror setup. When the Mirroring page of the database properties appears, click on the Configure Security button in the upper right corner of the window as shown below.

Decide whether you will be using a 3^rd SQL Server as a Witness server and then click on Next.

If you have not setup mirroring previously, you will need to specify the port for mirroring to use and give the endpoint a name. This endpoint will be created on each server and can be viewed from SQL Management Studio.

Configure each server and confirm connectivity as well as the security credentials. Once connectivity has been confirmed and the SQL Service account credential information has been specified, click on Finish to allow the mirroring to be established between the two servers.

Once mirroring is configured, it is not started so you will have to click on the Start Mirroring button as shown below to begin the transaction replication from the Principal to the Mirror server. If all goes well, you will see the databases appear like the following.

If you want to try to failover the database so that Principal and Mirror roles are switched, click on the Failover button. This will cause a warning dialog to appear confirming your decision. Choose Yes to allow the failover to occur.

Basic Troubleshooting

As a DPM administrator, there is often not a lot of time allocated to troubleshoot setup and installation issues and these types of issues are common when working with unfamiliar technologies. Here are a few of the most common database mirroring configuration issues that arise. Take a look at http://TechNet.Microsoft.com for more detailed information about other failures that you encounter.

If the database is not in Full Recovery mode, the following is displayed. If the restored copy of the database did not have Full Recovery mode setup when it was backed up, then you will need to delete it and create a new backup after making this setting change.

If the mirror copy was not restored using the “RESTORE WITH NORECOVERY”, the following error will be displayed. Simply remove the restored copy of the database and restore it using this option to work around this issue.

In a busy environment, there may be transactions that are not captured. If this is the case, the following error may be displayed. You may need to place the Principal database in single-user mode and backup the transactions. Once these are restored to the mirror server, then try to configure mirroring.

Summary

Database mirroring can be established where one side of the mirror is on a Failover Cluster. You can even have the same SQL server acting in a mirroring partnership with 3 or 4 or more other SQL Servers. This is not a recommended practice however as this configuration can create confusion and, when it comes to DPM protection, all servers participating in a mirroring partnership must have the DPM agent installed. If the agent is not installed on all servers, DPM will not be able to protect the mirrored database.

In an upcoming blog, we will cover the protection of a mirrored database using DPM 2007 SP1. Subsequent blogs will also discuss the recovery of a mirrored database to its original location. When reading the blog on recovering mirrored databases, you may need to refer back to this blog as the recovery process requires the database mirror to be broken and re-established in order to complete the restore.

Vic Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

So You Want to Try a Backup Network?

jeffhugh — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:42:04 GMT

What is a Backup Network?

A backup network allows backup traffic segmentation from your primary network. Keeping backup traffic off your production network allows you more bandwidth for your day-to-day work without having to wait for off hours to get backups of your data. This does not mean that you will not see potential performance issues as the servers are backed up, but the impact will be much less.

DPM Backup Network Scenarios

Let us look at a scenario when a backup network would be advantageous

This is a simple backup network. As you can see, the DPM Server connects to the production network and the backup network.

This will reduce the amount of traffic on the production network by forcing all backup traffic onto the backup network.

When setting up your backup network:

1. You must have either a DNS server in the production network or hosts files on the servers. If you choose to use a DNS server you must not create a DNS sub-domain. The DNS server must be accessible from the backup network.

2. Insure that DNS name resolution for the PS on the DPM server can resolve the backup address of the protected server and vice versa. (Use NSLookup using FQDNs to check)

Important: When setting up the backup network it is necessary to include the address range of all protected servers on the backup network.

Configuring a Backup Network

To configure the backup network you need to insure that NSLookup <FQDN of the Protected Server> resolves to the backup network and vice versa.

Here is the following from the DPM Powershell Console

Add-BackupNetworkAddress [-DPMServerName] <String> -Address *.*.*.*/subnetmask [-SequenceNumber]

Parameter

Description

-Address

The IP address or subnet mask of the network

-DPMServerName <String>

Hostname of a DPM server

-SequenceNumber

Specifies the priority of the address for use as backup

The chart above lists the necessary parameters to setup a backup network.

An example of setting up a backup network follows:

Add-BackupNetworkAddress -DpmServername <DPMServerHostName> -Address 192.168.1.0/24 -SequenceNumber 1

This will add the address range 192.168.1.0/24 as the backup network for the DPM server.

Once the commands have completed successfully, it is necessary to restart the DPM Agent on the Protected Servers and to restart the DPM Service on the DPM Server.

For more information, see the TechNet Library Article:

Using Backup Network Address: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964298.aspx

Walt Whitman
Senior Support Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Intro to DPM 2007-SP1

jeffhugh — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:31:51 GMT

In the coming weeks, we will be discussing the new features of DPM 2007 SP1 to enough depth that you can implement them into a new or existing environment. We will also be covering some of the basics on how to install and configure, at a very basic level, the applications that DPM will be protecting.

This information is targeted towards DPM administrators who have little-to-no experience with the technologies that DPM SP1 provides support for such as SQL Database Mirroring, Exchange SCR, Hyper-V, and SharePoint Search index servers.

Here is a summary list of those new features:

Mirrored Database protection for SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 databases
Mirrored Content and Search Index Database protection for SharePoint WSS and MOSS farms
Search Index database protection and recovery for SharePoint farms
Distinct Content Database checking
Exchange 2007 SCR protection
Hyper-V guest OS protection
Cross-Forest Protection
Additional support provided for Local Data Sources which include locally installed Hyper-V guests

Let’s take a look at these features at an introductory level; future blogs will go in depth on how to configure, protect, and recover these new data sources.

Mirrored SQL Database Protection

Database mirroring is a feature introduced with SQL Server 2005 SP1 which allows transactions to be passed to a secondary server (mirror) shortening the failover time needed to bring the alternate database online for user access.

DPM provides support based on the configurations that the SQL Server support teams support. As an example, DPM can protect a mirrored database after failover and without manual intervention. DPM can also protect a mirrored database that spans multiple domains or where one of the partners in the mirror is on a Windows Failover cluster.

The blog on SQL Database mirroring will go into the details of setting up and mirroring a given database and what steps are needed to protect and recover the data. We will also discuss the mechanisms in DPM 2007 SP1 that allow for continued protection after a failover of a mirrored database, whether the failover is manually or automatically instigated.

DPM does not extend limitations of a protected product but is designed to fit within that product’s support scenarios. For example: it is a limitation of SQL that mirroring must be removed in order for any data to be restored. DPM does not work around this limitation, but works within it.

For the full set of features DPM offers with regard to SQL Server database mirroring, please refer to the blog on SQL Database mirroring. The examples provided in the blog cover the protection of a mirrored database where one side of the mirror resides on a Windows Failover cluster.

SharePoint Features

Mirrored Content and Search Index Database protection

As with the protection of mirrored SQL databases, as of SP1 for DPM 2007, protection is provided for any SharePoint content databases that have been mirrored in SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 along with any Search Index databases that have been mirrored in SQL.

Search Index databases protection

Prior to SP1 for DPM 2007, the failure or corruption of a search index database could result in re-crawling of the sites in a farm and this process in large implementations could run for more than 24 hours. With the release of SP1, DPM is able to restore the index database to its original location so that a subsequent crawl of the SharePoint content could be reduced from 24 hours to just 2-3 hours. This saves stress on users who actively search for content and reduces recovery down-time by allowing administrators to effectively seed the search index database and then run a crawl to update the database with any changes.

Distinct Content Database Checking

Invariably, content databases in large farms will become inconsistent from time to time. Prior to SP1 for DPM 2007, if any content database became inconsistent, the entire farm went unprotected until the consistency checks for every database completed. Forcing healthy data sources into an unprotected state due to one or two unhealthy data sources was not ideal for large SharePoint farms.

As we will see when this feature is discussed in greater detail in a later blog, any content database that is showing as “consistent” will see its job moved immediately into the Completed Jobs list. Any remaining databases whose state is “ inconsistent” will remain until the consistency check completes on those respective databases. At that point, the consistency check job for the Farm will run and complete.

This ability becomes of paramount importance considering that the failover of a mirrored content database renders that content database inconsistent until the automated consistency check job runs to correct this issue. The time savings of being able to isolate a content database in order to run a needed consistency check, as compared to the entire list of databases in the farm, will be the greatest for the largest SharePoint farms.

Exchange SCR Protection

Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 introduced a new replication topology called Standby Continuous Replication, or ‘SCR’ for short. In an upcoming blog on SCR protection, we will learn about SCR and what configurations are supported.

We will also discuss how to setup SCR on a mailbox database and how to protect the Source and Target servers. Protecting the Target SCR server is crucial as Exchange does not natively provide backup support for the Target server, only the Source server. To fill this gap, DPM 2007 SP1 introduces this capability.

Because Exchange SCR configuration and management is handled from within the Exchange Management Shell CLI (Command Line Interface) and not from the Exchange Management Console, the blog will cover the switches for the necessary cmdlets in detail. Familiarity with PowerShell is needed for support of this technology and extra detail is provided in the appropriate blog.

We will also cover the recovery capabilities and limitations imposed by Exchange, as there are some limitations we must work within due to the way SCR is implemented within Exchange.

Hyper-V Guest OS Protection

Virtualization technologies like Virtual Machine Manager and Hyper-Visor (Hyper-V) have become widely adopted because of the tremendous cost savings provided by each. With the release of Service Pack 1 for DPM 2007, protection of the Hyper-V guests becomes another key area of protection that must be filled.

DPM’s ability to protect Hyper-V guests covers a rich array of capabilities that include the ability to protect guests in a Hyper-V host installation based on Windows Server 2008 Core as well as the Full versions. With Integration Services, the Hyper-V VSS writer makes it possible for DPM to protect guests that are live without having to pause or save them, which would interrupt user connectivity.

One limitation is that DPM does not protect all other drives connected to the guest OS. In cases where iSCSI connections to other storage exists in the guest, the DPM agent should be installed inside of the guest partition to provide a protection solution of the additional iSCSI volumes.

For guest operating systems that do not support Integration Services like Windows NT 4.0, DPM will pause the system before a backup is taken. This means that DPM is now capable of protecting Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Linux systems that are guests of a Hyper-V host system. In these situations, DPM will only backup the local storage (VHD) files and not remote disks. Using this method, DPM is also capable of protecting dynamic disks inside of a VM and pass-through disks (physical host-machine disks mapped to a VM for use).

When the offline backup is taken, DPM requests the machine to be paused. The paused system’s VHDs are then snapshot, and the guest OS is brought back online.

DPM is able to restore the base files to any location or the full guest back to its original location. When restored to its original location, the administrator only needs to power the system on and verify the data is there. No other configuration changes are necessary within the Hyper-V Manager.

Clustered guests can also be protected by DPM as long as both host systems have the DPM agent installed so that regardless of which system the guest is online and running on, the DPM Server can contact an agent to initiate protection of the files. DPM also supports Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Quick Migration.

Cross-Forest Protection

The ability to protect data sources on a server in a different domain within the same forest has been a feature of DPM since its initial release. With the release of SP1 for DPM 2007, protection is now being provided across a 2-way forest-to-forest trust. The only requirement for this feature is that the cross-forest trust must be 2-way.

Cross-forest trust provides a new type of Windows trust for managing the security relationship between two forests—greatly simplifying cross-forest security administration and authentication. Users can securely access resources in other forests without sacrificing the single sign-on and administrative benefits of having only one user ID and password maintained in the user's home forest. This provides the flexibility to account for the need for some divisions or areas to have their own forest, yet maintain the benefits of Active Directory.

Local Data Source Protection

To help Enterprise level customers who have single server installations in remote offices, DPM 2007 SP1 supplements the local data source protection capabilities for files, and folders available prior to SP1 by adding Hyper-V guests as well. With more Enterprise-level customers setting up remote offices with a limited number of multi-use servers, DPM is now capable of protecting data sources locally. Considering also that most remote offices are across low-bandwidth links, there may not be sufficient bandwidth to handle the amount of data DPM must transfer in order to protect it.

Summary

We discussed, at a very high level, several of the new feature offered with the release of DPM 2007 SP1. From this blog, we will move into more in-depth discussions of each feature. We will demonstrate how to implement the basic features of the applications DPM protects for DPM administrators since a cursory knowledge of each protected application is necessary for implementing and managing protection with DPM.

Vic Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Installation and Rollback of DPM SP1

jeffhugh — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:09:12 GMT

Well, the day has come and you are thinking about installing SP1 for DPM 2007 to your DPM environment. There are a few things you that you need to be aware of before you install this Service Pack to any DPM servers. Let’s take a moment to discuss these before unleashing SP1 into your environment haphazardly. In the event you do make the decision to back SP1 out of your DPM environment, we will cover the steps needed to make this happen. Of course, we will first discuss how to best prepare for the installation of the service pack.

To begin with, DPM 2007 SP1 includes a lot of new functionality as well as numerous fixes that will without a doubt stabilize your DPM environment. As with any churn to the binaries on a server, there is always an inherent amount of risk involved. In order to mitigate the risk involved and try to make this as positive an experience as possible, take some precautionary steps.

Do you know what DPM patch level you are running currently without looking at the DPM server?

If you know and are absolutely sure that you know, then kudos to you; since I am a precautionary doubter by nature, let’s confirm. Two ways to confirm this are covered. First, from within the DPM Administrator’s Console, look for the ‘I’ which looks like the informational icon seen in the Event Viewer in the upper right of the console. Double clicking on this will show you a screen that provides the build number of DPM which will appear near the bottom of the screen and may resemble “2.0.8107”. This can be used to determine the patch level of DPM as DPM 2007 without any patches will have a version number of “2.0.5820”.

Alternatively, you can open SQL Query Analyzer and connect to the DPMDB and run the following query “Select name, buildnumber from tbl_AM_AgentPatch”. This query will return the necessary information to determine what the patch level of the DPM Server is.

Now that we have that information, let’s take a look at protecting the data that is currently in production before we introduce SP1.

If you have applied any patches like the Feature Pack from KB949779 which modified the database schema, a backup of the database has already been taken for you. You will find this backup of the DPM database in a file called QFEdpmdb.bak in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\SQL\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup folder on the DPM server if you have a local installation of SQL on the DPM Server. If your DPM server is utilizing a remote installation of SQL Server, then you will find the backup of the database on the SQL server, under the MSSQL\Backup folder on the server.

Protect this file as this is an older backup that can be used as a last resort before reinstalling from scratch and having to start over with DPM. You may want to consider renaming this file to include the build number of the database that it contains. Next move this file into a safe location.

With that file protected, you will now need to open a command prompt and run the following command to take a backup of the DPM database. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin and run the command ‘dpmbackup –db’. Depending on the size of the DPMDB database, it may take some time to complete. Once this backup completes, it will create a file called DPMDB.BAK in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\ShadowCopy\Database Backups. This backup should be renamed to give you an idea of what the build number is and then the files should be copied into the same folder as the QFEdpmdb.bak file that was moved earlier. Now you have both of your backups labeled clearly so you know what they are and they are safe.

The reason for this is that if SP1 needs to be removed, a full uninstall of DPM will be required and we don’t want these copies put at risk when the server is cleaned up of DPM. Regardless of whether you intend to upgrade DPM to SP1 right away or not, it is strongly recommended that you have a scheduled task run the ‘dpmbackup –db’ command on at least a weekly basis and have that file copied to a location where DPM can back it up. Local Data Source protection was introduced with the Feature Pack from article number KB949779 so this is an option.

With DPM backups taken, and moved to a safe location, you are ready to upgrade your DPM server to SP1.

Returning DPM to a Pre-SP1 version

Invariably, there are some situations that necessitate that DPM 2007 SP1 be removed from the environment while additional testing is done. It will not happen in many cases, but given the odds, it will happen. Let’s now take a look at the steps necessary to return DPM to a working version prior to the SP1 upgrade.

Considering that the SP1 installation routine will take a backup of the DPMDB database during the installation of the service pack, we can utilize that copy of the database for our recovery.

Working under the premise that the QFEDPMDB.BAK file has been moved to a safe location out from under the DPM folder structure as stated above, we will need to uninstall DPM from the server. On a Windows Server 2008 system, this is done by navigating to Control Panel and selecting the Programs and Features option. This will generate a list of installed applications like Add\Remove Programs does for Windows Server 2003.

On both Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 servers, look for the Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 entry and remove it. On a Windows Server 2008 system, there is an Uninstall option at the top and in Windows Server 2003, click on the Change/Remove button to the right. This will start the wizard to remove DPM from the server. This is necessary in order to return the server back to a Pre-SP1 build of DPM as the modifications to the database schema cannot be reversed without uninstalling.

Follow the wizard to the Uninstallation Options screen where 2 radio buttons will be presented. The first is the Retain disk-based recovery points button. This is likely the option you will select as these recovery points can be used in recovery scenarios after the DPM server is back up and running with a pre-SP1 build. If you choose the Remove data option, you must understand that any recovery points created previously before and after SP1 was installed will be lost and cannot be recovered.

Click on Next and continue through the wizard until the uninstall of DPM has been completed. There is a notification screen at the end that tells of tasks that were not performed by the uninstall routine. One complete, you will need to reboot the DPM server.

After the server comes back up and you have logged in, you will need to navigate to the SQL Server Management Studio and delete the DPMDB database. This must be done in order for the reinstallation of DPM to be successful. The installation routine will detect if there is already a DPMDB in existence on the SQL server instance selected. Once the DPMDB database has been deleted, you can begin the install of DPM on the server.

Install DPM just as you did originally making the same settings changes during the installation. Once the installation completes and you are presented with the Installation Success screen, unselect the Open DPM 2007 Administrator Console when the wizard closes checkbox. This is not the right time to open the console as this is a plain installation with no data. Choose Close to terminate the wizard. Now the patches that were on the DPM server prior to SP1 will need to be reinstalled. If you have the patch from KB949779 or anything after it, you can start with it and then apply the last patch that was applied to the server. The reasoning here is that from the KB949779 patch forward, all patches were cumulative.

NOTE: If you are unsure what build of DPM you were running, you can restore the DPM database using the following commands and then run the query (“Select name, buildnumber from tbl_AM_AgentPatch”) to see what build number DPM was prior to applying SP1. At that point, you will know which patches to apply.

Once the DPM server has been patched, you will want to rename the new QFEDPMDB.BAK file that was created after applying the KB949779 patch so that you will have a working clean database to revert back to if needed.

Restore the DPM Data

Now that DPM has been reinstalled and patched, you will need to restore the database and get DPM back up and running. In our recovery example, the database (QFEDPMDB.BAK) backup file was moved to C:\DPM_BACKUP folder prior to removing DPM. To restore the data, open a command prompt using Start\Run\’CMD’ and navigate to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin folder (understanding that this is the folder that DPM was installed to).

Type the following at the command line and press enter.

Dpmsync –restoredb –dbloc c:\DPM_BACKUP\qfedpmdb.bak

This will restore the contents from the backup file into the existing DPM database. Depending on how much data has to be restored, this may take some time.

From the same command prompt, now type and execute the following command.

Dpmsync –sync

This command can take a very long time (hours) for DPM database that are very large and have been protecting large numbers of data sources. As there is no progress bar, do not be alarmed if this process appears to be hung and non-responsive. If the process is still running after 8-12 hours, you may consider opening a support incident with Microsoft.

When it completes, you can then test the DPM installation by opening the DPM Admin Console. If any agents have been upgraded to the SP1 version, you will need to remove the agent and reinstall it which will result in the machine being restarted so this should be taken into account when backing out DPM SP1 from the environment.

The DPM Admin Console should reveal the agents and data sources that were being protected prior to the application of SP1. This completes the restoration but there is still the matter of stabilizing the data sources that DPM is protecting.

As with most application recoveries, a Consistency Check must be run. Since the entire DPM server was restored to a pre-SP1 state, all of the data sources will show inconsistent. A Consistency Check will be required on each data source in the environment and this may take considerable time and storage space to complete.

As the data sources show a Protection Status of ‘OK’, then DPM will continue protecting them based on their original schedules. If there are portions of this process that were not clear or missing, please send us your comments.

Vic Reavis
Support Escalation Engineer
Enterprise Platforms Support

SQL Installation and Reporting Issues with Data Protection Manager

tomac — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:00:58 GMT

I have seen enough calls come in for DPM that are related to the SQL Reporting services that I figured we should put out some general troubleshooting guides for these. As with just about everything else in our industry, these are just guides and there are far too many possible scenarios out there for us to be able to address everything that could possibly happen.

Most notably, the issues we have seen can be broken down into two categories.
1) DPM installation issues with SQL Reporting.
2) Reporting issues within DPM.

Technorati Tags: DPM,SQL,Data Protection Manager

DPM installation issues with SQL Reporting
Most often if you run into an error with SQL Reporting while trying to install DPM, you would get a message stating:

Error 812

Verify that SQL Server Reporting Services is installed properly and that it is running.

There are several issues that may arise here, but the bottom line is the failure in this scenario is not the DPM installation but a problem with the installation of SQL (more specifically installation/configuration of the Reporting Services).

Most often this situation is encountered when we have a problem with port something using port 443. This is what IIS uses for SSL communications, so the first place to look is in the IIS admin pages for any web sites you have on this box. Check to see if 443 is listed for SSL. Of course it is not always that easy though. There are often other applications that for some reason have been set up to use that port as well. A really good way to determine if anything is listening on that port is to run the following at a command prompt:

netstat –anob

If you see something like this, then something is using 443:

TCP 0.0.0.0:443 0.0.0.0 Listening 4

If it does not list a specific application/process, then from the command prompt you can run:

net stop http

This will prompt you for other services that depend on HTTP. I have seen both RRAS and IAS listed here and they ended up being what caused the installation issues. Based on that, I feel that we really have to emphasize the importance of DPM being dedicated. DPM is designed to run on a dedicated, single-purpose server that cannot be either a domain controller or an application server. The DPM server must not serve as a management server for Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 or Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007; you can, however, monitor the DPM server and the computers that it protects in MOM or Operations Manager (from DPM TechCenter).

If those do not resolve the issue there is one more thing we have seen (although considerably less often). We have seen cases where permissions on the %Windir%\temp folder were not correct. Make sure that IIS_WPG group has Read/Write/Execute access to this directory.

In all of these situations, uninstall DPM with Add/Remove programs and launch the installation again after making the changes.

Reporting issues within DPM

Outside of the DPM installation process, we have seen issues where DPM installation was up and running fine, but administrators could not use the reporting tab within DPM.

As with everything else, there are many possible reasons for this, but here are the ones I have seen most prevalently.

If clicking on the Reporting tab in DPM and get the following error, “DPM could not connect to SQL Server Reporting Services server because of IIS connectivity issues.” we need to again look into IIS. This is usually accompanied by error 3036. You can often get more information by trying to access this outside of DPM. Through a web browser, navigate to http://localhost/reportserver$MS$DPM2007$

If this gives you CGI/Script errors, then you can follow some simple steps. In IIS 7, this article walks through opening up the correct rights, 942065.

Finally we have seen instances of updated SQL packages break the reporting services. These are usually manifested with a failure of the reporting services to start or connect to the report server database. The system event log may have Event ID: 107 from Report Server Windows Service (MS$DPM2007$). Removing the most recent SQL GDR in add/remove programs usually resolves these.

Authors:
Chris Butcher &
Keith Hill
Microsoft Corporation

Error 207 - No such interface supported 0x80004002 after installing DPM SP1

JamesShamblin — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:12:00 GMT

We have seen several calls from people who are getting this error after installing SP1 for DPM2007.

An Unexpected error occurred during a VSS operation.
ID 207 Details: No such interface supported (0x80004002)
Recommended action: Retry the operation

This can occur when trying to create new Protection Groups, running Consistency Checks, etc.

The following appears in the MSDPMCurr.errlog :

GetDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt3Interface () failed: (0x80004002).

This may occur if the IVssDifferentialSoftwareSnapshotMgmt3 interface is not registered correctly with the Volume Shadow Copy Components.

Resolution:

Re-register vss_ps.dll on the DPM server:

From a command propmt issue "regsvr32 %windir%\System32\vss_ps.dll"

You may need to restart the “Volume Shadow Copy” service after performing this step.

If this does not resolve the issue, please follow the steps in KB940032

If performing on Windows 2008, ensure this is done from a command prompt with elevated (administrator) credentials.

Author: Dimce Hristov
Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Australia

How to Expire Tape Recovery Points in DPM 2007

tomac — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:37:25 GMT

When running System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 and utilizing the DPM tape libraries capability for protection, it may be necessary to expire tape recovery points prior to “Expires On” date. Tapes which have unexpired data cannot be marked as free from the UI in the DPM Administrators console but sometimes (esp. while testing) users need to override this behavior. The script below allows a user to mark any tape as free so that it’s available for protection by DPM. This same script can be utilized for tape libraries or stand alone tape devices.

To view the expiry date for a tape you can open the DPM Administrator console, click on Management and select the Libraries tab. Identify the tape of interest, right click and select “View tape contents”. This will display a list of recovery points on the tape and the “Expires on” date.

Running the script below will delete ALL the recovery points on the tape and mark it as “Free (contains data)”. This script cannot be used to selectively choose particular recovery points to delete.

CLI Script: Force mark tape as free is also documented at
http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/archive/2007/09/04/cli-script-force-mark-tape-as-free.aspx

RESOLUTION:

Copy the script below to Notepad and save it to C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin folder using a descriptive file name. This is the default installation locate for DPM 2007 but the path may vary if DPM 2007 is installed to an alternate location. Be sure to change the file extension to .ps1 then open the DPM Management Shell. The usage and examples of scripts can be found by calling them with ‘-?’ or ‘-help’ from inside DPM Management Shell.

When you run this it will show confirmation that it is removing recovery points and marking tape as free. If this returns immediately and does not give any output, the parameters you put in were probably wrong. SEE EXPECTED OUTPUT BELOW.

COPY AND PASTE FROM HERE>>>

#REM: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/archive/2007/09/04/cli-script-force-mark-tape-as-free.aspx

param ([string] $DPMServerName, [string] $LibraryName, [string[]] $TapeLocationList)

if(("-?","-help") -contains $args[0])
{
    Write-Host "Usage: ForceFree-Tape.ps1 [[-DPMServerName] <Name of the DPM server>] [-LibraryName] <Name of the library> [-TapeLocationList] <Array of tape locations>"
    Write-Host "Example: Force-FreeTape.ps1 -LibraryName "My library" -TapeLocationList Slot-1, Slot-7"
    exit 0
}

if (!$DPMServerName)
{
$DPMServerName = Read-Host "DPM server name: "

    if (!$DPMServerName)
    {
        Write-Error "Dpm server name not specified."
        exit 1
    }
}

if (!$LibraryName)
{
$LibraryName = Read-Host "Library name: "

    if (!$LibraryName)
    {
        Write-Error "Library name not specified."
        exit 1
    }
}

if (!$TapeLocationList)
{
$TapeLocationList = Read-Host "Tape location: "

    if (!$TapeLocationList)
    {
        Write-Error "Tape location not specified."
        exit 1
    }
}

if (!(Connect-DPMServer $DPMServerName))
{
Write-Error "Failed to connect To DPM server $DPMServerName"
exit 1
}

$library = Get-DPMLibrary $DPMServerName | where {$_.UserFriendlyName -eq $LibraryName}

if (!$library)
{
Write-Error "Failed to find library with user friendly name $LibraryName"
exit 1
}

foreach ($media in @(Get-Tape -DPMLibrary $library))
{
    if ($TapeLocationList -contains $media.Location)
    {
        if ($media -is [Microsoft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.LibraryManagement.ArchiveMedia])
        {
            foreach ($rp in @(Get-RecoveryPoint -Tape $media))
            {
                Get-RecoveryPoint -Datasource $rp.Datasource | Out-Null

                Write-Verbose "Removing recovery point created at $($rp.RepresentedPointInTime) for tape in $($media.Location)."
                Remove-RecoveryPoint -RecoveryPoint $rp -ForceDeletion -Confirm:$false
            }

            Write-Verbose "Setting tape in $($media.Location) as free."
            Set-Tape -Tape $media -Free
        }
        else
        {
            Write-Error "The tape in $($media.Location) is a cleaner tape."
        }
    }
}

<<<END OF SCRIPT>>>

Tape Library Devices:

NOTE: In the example below the script was named Force-FreeTape.ps1.

PS C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin> Force-FreeTape.ps1
DPM server name: : Pss-DPM2007
Library name: : Sony LIB-162 Medium Changer
Tape location: : Slot-5
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00:09 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Friday, October 31, 2008 7:00:09 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Thursday, October 30, 2008 7:00:11 AM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00:09 AM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Thursday, October 30, 2008 7:00:09 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Friday, October 31, 2008 7:00:09 AM

PS C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin>

StandAlone Tape Devices:

NOTE: You can use the same script on a standalone tape device, you have to fill in the following for tape location:

Drive-\\.\Tape0

where \\.\Tape0 is the “Windows name of the drive” that is located in the Details pane when selecting the tape.
(\\.\Tape# Where # is serial number in most cases)

PS C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin> Force-FreeTape.ps1
DPM server name: : sdpm02
Library name: : firestreamer tape drive
Tape location: : drive-\\.\Tape2147483644
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:

Tuesday, November 04, 2008 12:10:19 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Monday, November 03, 2008 9:03:11 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Monday, November 03, 2008 9:02:29 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Sunday, November 02, 2008 12:10:09 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Thursday, October 30, 2008 9:02:35 PM
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:02:34 PM

Author:
Thomas O'Malley
Senior Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Technorati Tags: DPM,Data Protection Manager

Changing the DPM SRT File Store location

tomac — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:01:36 GMT

It may become necessary to move the current SRT File Store to another location, for example, if space on the volume being used is running low, and the current data must be retained. In general, the steps are:

1. Using DPM 2007, backup the SRT RMFileStore and DPMSRT SQL databases.
2. Backup the SRT install directory and the location of the File Store
3. Uninstall SRT.
4. Reboot the server
5. Install SRT with the changed File Store path. The new target folder must be named "RPStore"
6. Exit the SRT MMC’s.
7. Stop the "DPM System Recovery Tool Data Store" service
8. Restore the SRT data
   i.   Restore the SRT SQL databases
   ii. Change the RepositoryPath in DPMSRT database
   iii. Restore the original FileStore (RPStore) to the new location.
   iv. Restore the files backed up in step 2 to the SRT installation directory
   v. Right-click each DPM System Recovery Tool task in the %windir%\Tasks directory
       and set the password by selecting Properties->Set Password.

1. Using DPM 2007, backup the SRT RMFileStore and DPMSRT SQL databases.

Create a Protection Group for the SRT machine.

2. Backup the SRT install directory and the location of the File Store (there are two ways to do this):

Method 1: Use DPM to protect the SRT Installation location and the location of the File Store:

Method 2: Manually back up.

If you wish not to use DPM to protect the SRT install location and the File Store, you must manually back up the following files from the SRT installation folder:

    pub.key
    *.rsd
    \Tasks\*.*
    %windir%\Tasks\*.job

    You can use the following script to achieve this:
    (make sure you set %SRTINSTALLDIR% appropriately prior to running the script)

        REM Copy pub.key file
        copy %SRTINSTALLDIR%\pub.key %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Backup
        REM Copy the recovery sets
        copy %SRTINSTALLDIR%\*.rsd %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Backup

        REM Copy Tasks from the System Recovery Tool\Tasks folder
        mkdir %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Backup\Tasks
        copy %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Tasks\*.* %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Backup\Tasks

        REM Copy Jobs from the Windows\Tasks folder
        mkdir %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Backup\WinTasks
        copy %windir%\Tasks\*.job %SRTINSTALLDIR%\Backup\WinTasks

    In addition, you also need to backup the File Store. The default location for the File Store is C:\RPStore.

3. Uninstall SRT.

When uninstalling, choose to “Remove Data”. The SRT files and File Store will get deleted as part of this option.

4. Reboot the server

5. Install SRT with the changed File Store path. The new target folder must be named "RPStore"

For example:

F:\RPStore
G:\new_srt_filestore\RPStore
H:\new_srt_filestore\subfolder\RPStore

6. Exit the SRT MMC’s.

7. Stop and disable the "DPM System Recovery Tool Data Store" service

From the Services MMC right-click the "DPM System Recovery Tool Data Store" service.

Under Startup Type, choose “Disabled”. Then click the “Stop” button and ensure that the service status shows “Stopped”

8. Restore the SRT data

There are five parts to this...

8.1 Restore the SRT SQL databases:

    On DPM 2007, click recover
    Expend the server name, and add RMFileStore and DPMSRT to the recoverable items.

    Select RMFileStore, and hit "recover"
    Choose the "Recover to Original instance of SQL server (overwrite database)" option
    Choose "Leave database operational”

Repeat the above for DPMSRT database.

8.2 Change the RepositoryPath in DPMSRT database:

SRT installs SQL Server Express Edition. By default, this edition does not allow remote connections. Make the following changes so that remote connections are accepted.

   Start SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration
   Click on the “Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections”
   Click on “Remote Connections”, and choose “Use TCP/IP only”
Click "OK"

In the Services MMC, start the “SQL Server Browser” service.

On the DPM Server, Open SQL Management Studio, and connect to the DPMSRT SQL instance on the remote SRT server:

Expand Databases->DPMSRT->Tables
    Right-click the dbo.FilestoreTable and choose "Open Table"
    go to the RepositoryPath column, and change it to the new path. i.e. “G:\new_srt_filestore\RPStore\"
    Close the \DPMSRT.DPMSRT - dbo.FilestoreTable tab

Run a query to ensure that the new path is saved:
    Highlight "DPMSRT" in the Databases list. Right click, and select "new query"
    Type the following, and hit the execute button:

        SELECT FilestoreTable.* FROM FilestoreTable

    Verify that RepositoryPath points to the new path.

8.3 Restore the original FileStore (RPStore) to the new location. (Choose ”Yes” to overwriting data)

These were backed up in Step 2. The restore can be performed via DPM, or a manual copy of the files (depending on the backup method chosen in step 2)

Ensure that the resultant structure contains the following folders:
\RPStore\Data
\RPStore\Systems

e.g.
G:\new_srt_filestore\RPStore\Data
G:\new_srt_filestore\RPStore\Systems

8.4 Restore the files backed up in step 2 to the SRT installation directory

The following files should be restored to the SRT installation directory. As with the previous step, the restore can be performed via DPM, or a manual copy of the files (depending on the backup method chosen in step 2)

    pub.key
    *.rsd
    \Tasks\*.*
    %windir%\Tasks\*.job

8.5 Right-click each DPM System Recovery Tool task in the %windir%\Tasks directory and set the password by selecting Properties->Set Password.

9. Re-enable and start "DPM System Recovery Tool Data Store" service.

From the Services MMC right-click the "DPM System Recovery Tool Data Store" service.

Under Startup Type, choose “Automatic”. Then click the “Start” button and ensure that the service status shows “Started”

Author: Dimce Hristov
Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Australia

Technorati Tags: Data Protection Manager,System Recovery Tool

Data Protection Manager 2007 - SQL Server 2005 databases are not enumerated

tomac — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:55:49 GMT

Problem Description

When trying to protect SQL Server 2005 SP2 (patch version 9.00.3042.00) that is installed on a Windows Server 2008 machine with System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 you will not be able to enumerate the SQL databases for protection. Other data sources like volumes and system state will be enumerated but the “All SQL Servers” option is not available.

If you open a command prompt and run “vssadmin list writers” the SqlServerWriter is not listed.

You may notice the “SQL Server VSS Writer” service is running when viewing Services in Computer Management and if you try Stopping and Restarting the “SQL Server VSS Writer” service or rebooting the SQL Server the writer will still not be displayed
in "Vssadmin list writers".

Further, when looking at the Application Event log on the SQL Server the following two events will be logged each time you try to enumerate the data sources from the protection group wizard in the DPM Administrator Console.

Log Name: Application
Source: VSS
Date: 9/3/2008 9:29:01 AM
Event ID: 8193
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: %SQLServerName%
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine
CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040154.

SECOND EVENT:

Log Name: Application
Source: VSS
Date: 9/3/2008 9:29:01 AM
Event ID: 32
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: %SQLServerName%
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: The VSS Coordinator class is not registered.
This may be caused due to a setup failure or as a result of an application's installer or uninstaller.

However – if you perform a SQL backup – the backup is successful.

Resolution

SQLWriter fails to create MetaData if any database name has leading or trailing spaces or other non printable characters. This causes SQLServerWriter to fail to display in VSSAdmin list writers.

Trailing space might be hard to spot just by looking at the Database names in SQL Server Management Studio. However, you can look at the Database properties and go to the “Files” tab and look for the Logical Name for the LOG FILE.

EXAMPLE: Note the space between the ‘TrailingSpace’ and the ‘_log’ [TrailingSpace _log]

Procedure To View Database Names:

> Open SQL Server Management Studio

> Expand the SQL 2005 Databases

> Right click on each database and select Properties

> When the Database Properties screen appears select Files on the left column

> View the Logical Name for a leading or trailing space or non printable character

Author:
Thomas O'Malley
Senior Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Technorati Tags: DPM,Data Protection Manager

How to enable Tape collocation and Library Sharing after applying the Data Protection Manager 2007 Feature Pack – KB949779.

tomac — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:40:00 GMT

After installing KB949779 which is the new DPM 2007 Feature Pack, you have the ability to enable to new tape based media capabilities. This provides improved flexibility for tape based backups in your DPM 2007 environment.

Tape media sharing – so that multiple protection groups with similar tape retention periods can now share tapes. This enables you to have multiple recovery points from the same as well as different protection groups use the same tape.

Please run the following command to enable collocation of data on tape using the DPM PowerShell window:

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DpmServer <DPM Server Name> -OptimizeTapeUsage $true

To disable tape collocation you must run the following command using the DPM PowerShell window:

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DpmServer <DPM Server Name> -OptimizeTapeUsage $false

Tape library sharing – meaning multiple DPM servers can now share your enterprise tape library silo’s. For this you must specify one DPM server as the library server. The other DPM servers are then told to utilize the tape library on the specified library server. One important note around tape library sharing however is in regard to where the DPM database is located for each of the DPM servers including the library server. To be supported, all of the DPM servers must either be using a local SQL instance for their MS$DPM2007$ database or as an alternate option you must specify a single, global SQL Server that will host the MS$DPM2007$ databases for all of the DPM servers.

To specify the DPM Library server (the one where the tape library is attached) you must run the following command from the intended library server using a command prompt and the directory of %programfiles%\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Setup:

AddLibraryServerForDPM.exe -ShareLibraryWithDPM <Client DPM Servername>

To tell the other DPM 2007 servers to utilize the tape library attached to the now dedicated library server you must run the following command using a command prompt and the directory of %programfiles%\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Setup:

AddLibraryServerForDPM.exe -DPMServerWithLibrary <Library server name>

NOTE: Before running the next command you will need to change the account the two DPM services use to logon with. This will be done on all of the DPM servers that will be participating in the library sharing. When you make this change, SQL will restart and all currently running DPM jobs will fail and need to be restarted.

The easiest way to do this is through the SQL Server Configuration Manager. Highlight the SQL Server 2005 Services on the left and on the right it will list the services it uses. By default, DPM will create two services and set them to use the local account Microsoft$DPM$Acct. In order to use library sharing, this will have to be changed here to any domain account which has admin rights on the server. Doubleclicking the service listed here will allow you to change the account.

The two services that need to be changed are SQL Server (MS$DPM2007$) and SQL server Agent (MS$DPM2007$).

Run the following commands on the all DPM servers except the one you want to set as the global database for library client servers (this is not related to the option to use a global SQL instance and must be run no matter your choice there).

SetSharedDpmDatabase.exe -InstanceName <globalDPMSQLservername>\<instancename>

NOTE: Logging for the above commands will be appended to the DPM setup log file which on Windows Server 2003 is located under “%System Drive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\DPMLogs\DPMSetup.log” and on Windows Server 2008 under “%System Drive%\DPMLogs\DPMSetup.log”.

Additional Information:

949779 Description of the System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Feature Pack
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;949779

Set-DPMGlobalProperty
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc627336(TechNet.10).aspx

Get-DPMGlobalProperty
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc627337(TechNet.10).aspx

Author: Tyler Franke
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support