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DPM 2007 wins silver in eWeek Channel Insider Product of the Year 2008

 eWeek Channel Insiders - Product of the Year 2008 - Storage Management category

Today, DPM 2007 was awarded silver in the Storage Management category for this year's awards.

Criteria:

The winners were chosen by a select group of solution providers, and their picks reveal what the channel values most. Value. Support. Profit potential. The winner's list-- broken into five categories: Business Software, Security, Utility Software and Systems, Clients and Peripherals, Networking and Storage--serves as a roadmap for products that should be on every VAR’s roster.    .

eWeek's Methodology

To ensure that our awards are not only fair and just, but that they are compiled with the strictest of criteria and reflect real channel opinion, we chose a select list of VARs--from very large to SMBs and those selling a range of solutions and vendors--and contacted them to participate in an e-mail voting system. This controlled research allowed us to monitor and ensure the quality of our awards. 

Each participant was asked to rate the products from 0-10.  Products were scored, based on each voter's responses, from 0 to 10 as follows:

· 1 point: level of familiarity with product

· 3 points: profit potential of product

· 2-1/2 points: opportunity for aftermarket sales related to product

· 1-1/2 points: impact of product on the technology market as a whole

· 2 points: service/support level from vendor for product

We also weighted responses by level of familiarity with the product, so that votes counted more if they were from voters more familiar with the product.  

A special and sincere thanks to all of the Microsoft partners who voted for DPM. 

-- Jason

Troubleshooting tips for DPM 2007 - on the Windows Server Core blog

Hi folks,

There are some great DPM troubleshooting articles on the Windows Server 2008 core blog (http://blogs.technet.com/askcore) - which is maintained by the Microsoft Enterprise Windows Server Core Team.

Basic Troubleshooting of DPM 2007

Troubleshooting DPM agent deployments - part 1

Troubleshooting DPM agent deployments - part 2 (networking)

Supported Windows Server platforms for DPM 2007

And there are more coming, so stay tuned for more good depth info from the support team.

-- jason

Webcast -- what is coming next for DPM 2007 ?

Data Protectoin Manager 2007

Its been about 6 months since DPM 2007 became generally available in the market, so we starting to hear the question "What’s next for Data Protection Manager 2007?"

Please join us on Wednesday, April 23rd for a TechNet webcast to answer that question, as we talk about new workloads being protected, new capabilities within the product and when you can start taking advantage of them.

Webcast: Upcoming Changes to Data Protection Manager 2007 (Level 200);

Wednesday, April 23, 2008; 8:00AM Pacific Time

We will also have members of the product group addressing Q&A throughout the webcast, to answer your deep-dive questions about the existing DPM 2007, as well as our upcoming enhancements.

DPM PowerShell Script -- invoking a Consistency Check

By design, DPM 2007 should be ‘fire and forget’ – meaning that after initial replication, data changes will automatically and routinely replicate. 

However, due to a variety of external factors, the data set may become inconsistent.  Usually, DPM will correct itself within a replication cycle.  Depending on how often you have configured replication, this may not be soon enough.  One resolution to this is to have one’s management solution (e.g. System Center Operations Manager) see the alert that a data set is inconsistent and then automatically run this ‘consistency check’ to revalidate the data in a more timely manner.

Attached is a sample PowerShell script to invoke a consistency check of on a DPM data source.

# This script do a consistency check on the file system data source. The parameters have to be initialized first as given below.  Please give the values of parameters as appropriate for your environment.  You can customize this easily as per your needs. Save the attached file as a .ps1 file and invoke through the DPM Management Shell.

$dpmname = "DPM Server Name";
$pgname = "My PG";
$dsname = "G:\";

function StartDatasourceConsistencyCheck
{
    param($dpmname, $pgname, $dsname, $isheavyweight)

    write-host "Start consistency check on $dsname "

    trap{"Error in execution... $_";break}
    &{
        write-host "Getting protection group $pgname in $dpmname..."
        $clipg = Get-ProtectionGroup $dpmname | where { $_.FriendlyName -eq $pgname }

         if($clipg -eq $abc)
          {
              Throw "No PG found"
          }

        write-host "Getting $dsname from PG $pgname..."
        $ds = Get-Datasource $clipg | where { $_.logicalpath -eq $dsname }

        if($ds -eq $abc)
         {
              Throw "No Data Source found"
         }

        if( $isheavyweight -ne "true")
        {
            write-host "Starting light weight consistency check..."
            $j = Start-DatasourceConsistencyCheck -Datasource $ds
            $jobtype = $j.jobtype
            if(("Validation") -notcontains $jobtype)
                {
                    Throw "Shadow Copy job not triggered"
                }
            while (! $j.hascompleted ){ write-host "Waiting for $jobtype job to complete..."; start-sleep 5}
            if($j.Status -ne "Succeeded") {write-host "Job $jobtype failed..." }
            Write-host "$jobtype job completed..."
        }
        else
        {
            write-host "Starting Heavy weight consistency check..."
            $j = Start-DatasourceConsistencyCheck -Datasource $ds -HeavyWeight
            $jobtype = $j.jobtype
            if(("Validation") -notcontains $jobtype)
                {
                    Throw "Shadow Copy job not triggered"
                }
            while (! $j.hascompleted ){ write-host "Waiting for $jobtype job to complete..."; start-sleep 5}
            if($j.Status -ne "Succeeded") {write-host "Job $jobtype failed..." }
            Write-host "$jobtype job completed..."
        }

    }
}

#Example for usage

StartDatasourceConsistencyCheck $dpmname $pgname $dsname "false"
StartDatasourceConsistencyCheck $dpmname $pgname $dsname "true"

-- Mukul

New DPM case study -- AutoNation

SC-DPM07_bL 

A new DPM 2007 case study recently published on a great success story from AutoNation.

With 25,000 employees and $19 Billion US in revenue, AutoNation had a lot of data.  One quote from Ed Olson,
Lead Windows Infrastructure Engineer, AutoNation:

"We were trying to shoehorn 12 to 15 terabytes of data onto 15 tape drives each night, and it just wasn’t working."

The case study talks about protecting Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and SharePoint data, along with disaster recovery capabilities - and ends with this conclusion:

Saving money was not an original impetus for moving to a new backup scheme, because the company had to make a change to accommodate rising data volumes. However, System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 cost one-third of what competitive products cost, and annual backup-related maintenance chores are today one-third of what they were.

AutoNation also expects to save $30,000 annually in offsite tape-storage fees once it sets up System Center Data Protection Manager to copy files to the company’s disaster-recovery site in Chicago. “The fact that Data Protection Manager has a built-in disaster recovery capability makes it an unbelievable value, considering that its closest competitor costs three times as much without this feature,” Olson says.

Click here to read the case study of AutoNation with DPM 2007.

 

-- jason

DPM 2007 -- Calculating Disk Allocation

When you create a new Protection Group using the “Create Protection Group” wizard, DPM internally computes and allocates volumes for storing the replica and the shadow copies. This blog post enumerates the various formulae that we use internally to generate the default size.

 

File system datasource

SC size = (dataSourceSize * recoveryRangeInDays * 2) / 100 + 1 GB;

Replica size = (dataSourceSize * 3) / 2;

 

SQL DB

Replica size = dataSourceSize * (1 + LogChange) / (AlertThreshold - .05);

SC size = 2.5 * recoveryRangeInDays * LogChange * dataSourceSize + 1 GB

 

Exchange SG

replicasize = dataSourceSize * (1 + LogChange) / (AlertThreshold - .05);

SCSize = 4.0 * recoveryRangeInDays * LogChange * dataSourceSize + 1GB

 

where

Log change = 0.06

Alertthreshold = 0.9

 

- Mukul Singh Shekawat

Vote for DPM as product of the year

Vote for DPM 2007 as Storage Management product of the year at eWeek Channel Insider

We were recently informed that DPM 2007 has been named a finalist for 'Product of the Year' for eWeek Channel Insider ... in the Storage Management category.

There are some other cool finalists, but DPM is the only backup player in consideration this year. We think that DPM really changes the way that folks do backup, not only from a truly unified disk/tape perspective, but also because:

DPM comes from the original manufacturer of the workloads being protected (SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, Windows) instead of relying on  third-party backup and/or replication products. 

From an ease-of-use & cost-effectiveness perspective, we believe that DPM has brought advanced data protection to mainstream Windows users.

And we hope that we have empowered application owners to protect themselves within large enterprises, instead of relying on backup & storage experts who may not understand the intricacies of the applications.

If you agree, we'd appreciate your vote for DPM as Storage Management product of the year.

And thanks in advance for your vote and support of DPM.

Protecting Exchange Server with DPM 2007 - new blog post from MS Exchange Team

The Microsoft Exchange team blog (msexchangeteam.com) recently posted an absolutely phenomenal blog post that describes exactly how DPM 2007 protects Exchange Server data.  With soem really good explanations and nice graphics -- we might just reprint it as a new technical whitepaper (somewhat kidding).

Our hats are off to Doug Gowans, with help from Ruud Baars and Ben Appleby.  Good stuff, guys !!

If you are looking to protect Exchange Server data -- take a look at their post.

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/03/19/448477.aspx

CLI script: Create protection groups for Disk based backups

The following script creates a protection group with disk based protection, for a simple folder. It can be easily extended to add more data sources of different kinds – like Microsoft Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint, System state or Virtual Servers. The Synchronization frequency and retention ranges etc. can be easily modified to suit your needs.  Also, since we are protecting a sub-folder in a volume, we are using the CalculateSize parameter in Get-DataSourceDiskAllocation, which would calculate the exact size needed for all the items in that folder. This is not needed when protecting an application like Exchange/SQL or protection the entire File system volume.

 

---------------------------------------------- Start of Script ---------------------------------------------------

# To D2D create PG and do the initial replication

# This script is for creating Disk to Disk PG for File System

# For details contact mukuls[at]microsoft[dot]com

# Create a .ps1 file with this script and run under DPM Management Shell

 

# Customize these values as per your environment

 

$dpmname = "DPMServername.somedomain.com"

$psname = "PSservername.somedomain.com"

$dsname = "G:\"

$poname = "G:\ProtectableFolder"

$pgname = "MyCLIPG"

 

function CreatePG

{

                param($dpmname, $psname, $dsname, $poname, $pgname)

 

                write-host "Creating a D->D PG --> $pgname..."

 

                trap{"Error in execution... ";break}

                &{           

                                Write-Host "Getting PS: $psname from DPM: $dpmname"

                                $ps = Get-ProductionServer -DPMServerName $dpmname | where { ($_.machinename,$_.name) -contains $psname }

                               

                                Write-Host "Running Inquiry on PS: $psname for datasource $dsname"

                                $ds = Get-Datasource -ProductionServer $ps -Inquire | where { ($_.logicalpath,$_.name) -contains $dsname }

                               

                                Write-Host "Getting Child-datasource $poname from datasource $dsname"

                                $po = Get-ChildDatasource -ChildDatasource $ds -Inquire | where { ($_.logicalpath,$_.name) -contains $poname }

 

                                write-host "Create New PG ..."

                                $pg = New-ProtectionGroup -DPMServerName $dpmname -Name $pgname

 

                                write-host "Adding child datasource..."

                                Add-childDatasource -ProtectionGroup $pg -ChildDatasource $po

 

                                write-host "Setting Protection Type..."

                                Set-ProtectionType -ProtectionGroup $pg -ShortTerm disk

 

                                write-host "Setting Policy Objective...retention range - 10Days, synchronizationFrequency 15"

                                Set-PolicyObjective -ProtectionGroup $pg -RetentionRangeInDays 10 -SynchronizationFrequency 15

 

                                write-host "Setting Policy Schedules ..."

                                $ShadowCopysch = Get-PolicySchedule -ProtectionGroup $pg -ShortTerm| where { $_.JobType -eq "ShadowCopy" }

                                Set-PolicySchedule -ProtectionGroup $pg -Schedule $ShadowCopysch -DaysOfWeek mo -TimesOfDay 02:00

 

                                write-host "Setting Disk Allocation, with optimization (will take a few minutes to complete)"

                                Get-DatasourceDiskAllocation -Datasource $ds -Calculatesize

                                Set-DatasourceDiskAllocation -Datasource $ds -ProtectionGroup $pg

 

                                write-host "Setting Replica Creation Method ..."

                                Set-ReplicaCreationMethod -ProtectionGroup $pg -NOW

 

                                write-host "Commiting PG"

                                Set-protectiongroup $pg

                }

}

 

 

function waitforIRtoComplete

{

                param($waittime)

 

                write-host "Wait for IR to complete"

               

                $val = $waittime/30

                while($val -gt 0)

                {

                                Write-host "Wait for IR to complete... $val"

                                start-sleep 30

                                $val--

                }

               

}

 

Connect-DPMServer -DPMServerName $dpmname;

createPG $dpmname $psname $dsname $poname $pgname;

waitforIRtoComplete 120; 

---------------------------------------------- End of Script ----------------------------------------------

 

- Mukul Singh Shekhawat, Balaji Hariharan

Posted by dpm | 0 Comments
Filed under:

Are you ready to be a Data Protection Hero ?

Enter the DPM Data Protection Sweepstakes for a chance to win*:


Xbox 360 logo black banner



plus
Heroes DVD box set


HEROES Season 1 DVD Set

How do you enter?

You can enter online by visiting the web site for the Sweepstakes at http://www.dpmheroes.com

From there, just view the DPM overview demo and click to download the DPM 120-day Evaluation Software.

Enter your first and last name, company, phone and e-mail address and the Sweepstakes Event Code: WS08LAUNCH

 

On or around April 11, 2008, we will select 3 potential winners in a random drawing from all eligible entries received.

One First Prize: Xbox 360 Elite System Console including 120GB Hard Drive and Heroes Season One DVD set **

Two Second Prizes: Heroes Season One DVD set

*NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to legal residents of the 50 U.S. (includes D of C) 18+_who attended Windows Server 2008 launch. Void where prohibited. Sweepstakes ends March 31, 2008. For details, including free, alternate method of entry, see Official Rules at http://www.dpmheroes.com.

Video interview -- where does DPM 2007 see itself in the backup market

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

This interview is actually two months old - recorded at IT Forum in November 2007, but we recently found it online and wanted to share it with you.

Its about 10 minutes long and talks about what are core features and unique deliverables with DPM 2007.

Hope you enjoy it.

Click here to watch - IT Forum interview on DPM 2007

Are you on Facebook ? ... so is DPM

If you are a user or recommender of Data Protection Manager - we would like to invite you to join the DPM Group on Facebook.

Its a chance to connect with other users as well as members of the product group and Microsoft field.  We're just launching, so please join us.

 

In addition, if you are customer, partner, evaluator, reporter, analyst, or anyone else who just thinks that DPM is cool and wants to stay connected.

"Become a Fan" of DPM - to check out news, events and other information.

 

 

DPM 2007 licensing details -- a new video

Abridged blog Cross-Post - original at blogs.technet.com/JBUFF

Data Protection Manager 2007 

DPM 2007 has a really simple licensing model:

  • DPM Server - for the back-end platform(s)
  • Standard DPML - for file protection
  • Enterprise DPML - for file and application platform

There aren't any Open File managers, library agents, etc.

You don't have to buy # Exchange Agents, # SharePoint agents, # SQL Server agents, etc. - and then, when you re-commission a server, or add SharePoint content databases to a SQL Server -- have to buy new agents.

The enterprise DPML provides a single agent for all of our supported workloads, or use the standard agent for "just" files.

Yes, it really is that simple.

In fact, because of the common binaries and the inexpensive price for both agents, many customers, particularly volume license types, may just choose to deploy the Enterprise DPML for all servers that need protection.

For the best information on DPM licensing - refer the DPM licensing page on microsoft.com/DPM.

There are also some DPM licensing details that are worth exploring, so I've recorded this short streaming video to explain things like:

- Upgrading SKU's and SA from DPM 2006 to DPM 2007

- Licensing for the System Recovery Tool (SRT) for bare metal restores

- Agent licensing within a virtualized environment

- Cool news on the System Center Management Suite licenses

Click here to watch the streaming video on DPM Licensing

And as always, please feel free to offer feedback or make suggestions for future videos on Data Protection Manager or other Windows storage technologies.

-- Jason Buffington

Check out the new Data Protection appliances from DELL -- powered by DPM

SC-DPM07_bL

Dell Logo

Recently, Dell announced a series of Data Protection appliances, based on their PowerVault storage appliance line.

For those that are not familiar, a storage appliance like PowerVault uses the same basic server components as their PowerEdge server line.  But instead of being without an OS, or with a basic installation of Windows Server on it -- a PowerVault is optimized for file & disk-based IO, as a Storage Appliance.

Part of that optimization comes in the Windows Storage Server operating system that is used, which along with an optimized OS also provides additional storage capabilities not found in the Windows Server primary operating system.  Then, add some hardware optimizations and additional add-ins ... and voila, a PowerVault, powered by Windows Storage Server.

This core platform is a great solution for data protection, so by pre-installing System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, one now has a Data Protection appliance by Dell.

Dell_PowerVault_DP600

Certainly, one has choices when deploying DPM:

1) Build your own server (new or existing), with a fresh install of Windows Server and deploy Data Protection Manager

2) Build your own appliance by purchasing a Windows Storage Server and installing Data Protection Manager

3) Purchase a Data Protection appliance from a Microsoft partner like Dell - out of the box, powered up and ready to protect your Windows Servers in about 30 minutes.  Dell specifically has three models, DP100, DP500 and DP600, based on your storage and performance requirements.

Dell Data Protection Appliance datasheet (PDF)

Dell Data Protection Appliance family (website)

Speaking of storage and performance, you may also want to drive your DPM deployment throuh one of the many great Microsoft partner resellers out there, who can deploy any of these options for you, especially if you have engaged with them to deploy and maintain your core Microsoft applications like SQL Server, Exchange or SharePoint -- then they are well suited to help you architect and deploy Data Protection Manager as needed.

This month, we are highlighting the Dell + DPM solution in part because the Dell Power Solutions magazine for February 2008 includes two articles on their Data Protection appliance.  One is a higher-level description of the issues around backup that the DPM+Dell appliance is focused on addressing.  The other is a deeper-dive into how DPM works, within the appliance.Dell_Power_Solutions

If you already subscribe to Dell Power Solutions, look for them in the upcoming February 2008 edition.

If you can't wait for the magazine (or you don't subscribe yet), you can check them out online.

Safeguarding Data with Dell PowerVault Data Protection Appliances - by Sanjeet Singh and Jason Buffington

A Look Inside Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 -- by Jason Buffington & Sanjeet Singh

So, if you already have your own hardware - and Windows Server - load up on DPM 2007.

If you are looking at DPM 2007 and needing new hardware to run it on, then you might consider getting the entire solution from a name that you trust -- Dell.

-- Jason Buffington

Streaming Video -- How to deliver Disaster Recovery with DPM 2007

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

For many environments, simply providing reliable backup and recovery of key workloads like SQL Server and Exchange is enough.

For larger enterprises, distributed branch-office environments, and those with mandates for off-site protection -- DPM 2007 can also be used for multi-tiered data protection to deliver disaster recovery or business continuity preparedness.

When Microsoft began looking at what customers' unmet needs were around data protection, we found that customers were often forced to use:

- One technology for disk-to-disk protection for fast recovery

- A legacy tape backup solution that they were using for long-term archival

- Yet a third-type of file/block replication technology for their off-site requirements around disaster recovery

One of the key design criteria for Data Protection Manager 2007 was to provide a truly unified disk-to-disk-to-tape experience that blended these three mechanisms behind an easy-to-understand UI and focus on best-of-breed features within a fixed set of workloads.

While many understand how DPM 2007 works for "normal" data protection, DPM's native internal protection mechanism delivers Disaster Recovery within the same product.

 Streaming Video -- DPM 2007 for Disaster Recovery and Multi-Tiered data protection

 

This 17-minute streaming video provides:

- an overview of DPM 2007 in disaster recovery configurations

- step-by-step setup of the DPM server at the disaster recovery location

- how multi-tiered data protection meets branch office protection goals

If you have other suggestions for topics that you would like to hear about around DPM 2007 or other Microsoft storage technologies, please drop me an email.

-- jason

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