I am working on bringing Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) on board to handle some of Core Systems' disk to disk backup needs for the file server. Later, we would have the option to leverage some of its powerful application-aware abilities for MS products such as SharePoint, Exchange, SQL server, and Hyper-V.
DPM uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy technology to provide continuous data protection using point-in-time snapshots. The data is only copied once, after which changes are moved at the block level to volumes on the DPM server according to a schedule and a recovery point is created. This makes disk to disk recoveries fast and efficient and uses less storage.
For long term retention, the product has drivers to directly interface with tape backup machinery, and customers also use existing 3rd party disk-to-tape backup solutions. In our case, we are interested specifically in tape solely for disaster recovery purposes in the event of a catastrophic SAN failure. Also, it is important to schedule 3rd party tape backups at a time when data is not being copied to the DPM server. The dynamic partitioning scheme utilized by DPM could run into problems if it is trying to write to the volume while an agent is backing up.
DPM uses agents, which are pushed out from DPM Agent Coordinator to target those clients which will be backed up. The process of deploying and updating the clients is native to DPM and a separate application such as SCCM is not required, but can be used optionally. Notably, the client must be restarted after an agent update, so we'd need to install and then plan the reboot during scheduled maintenance.
I learned that DPM runs well virtualized (on VMware or Hyper-V) as long is it is allocated the true minimum hardware specifications as if it were a physical box.Since DPM is I/O hungry, parititioning 1 spindle into four drives is the type of shortcut that will lead to performance problems. For DPM 2007, 2TB maximum size for SAN LUN's is recommended.
Windows PowerShell is central to the product and all functions available in the GUI can be scripted with PowerShell, as well as some tasks that can be performed exclusively through scripting.
A couple of more facts about DPM that will require additional research:
DPM uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy technology to provide continuous data protection using point-in-time snapshots. The data is only copied once, after which changes are moved at the block level to volumes on the DPM server according to a schedule and a recovery point is created. This makes disk to disk recoveries fast and efficient and uses less storage.
For long term retention, the product has drivers to directly interface with tape backup machinery, and customers also use existing 3rd party disk-to-tape backup solutions. In our case, we are interested specifically in tape solely for disaster recovery purposes in the event of a catastrophic SAN failure. Also, it is important to schedule 3rd party tape backups at a time when data is not being copied to the DPM server. The dynamic partitioning scheme utilized by DPM could run into problems if it is trying to write to the volume while an agent is backing up.
DPM uses agents, which are pushed out from DPM Agent Coordinator to target those clients which will be backed up. The process of deploying and updating the clients is native to DPM and a separate application such as SCCM is not required, but can be used optionally. Notably, the client must be restarted after an agent update, so we'd need to install and then plan the reboot during scheduled maintenance.
I learned that DPM runs well virtualized (on VMware or Hyper-V) as long is it is allocated the true minimum hardware specifications as if it were a physical box.Since DPM is I/O hungry, parititioning 1 spindle into four drives is the type of shortcut that will lead to performance problems. For DPM 2007, 2TB maximum size for SAN LUN's is recommended.
Windows PowerShell is central to the product and all functions available in the GUI can be scripted with PowerShell, as well as some tasks that can be performed exclusively through scripting.
A couple of more facts about DPM that will require additional research:
- Requires an Active Directory Schema Extension.
- Can be managed with System Center Operations Manager.
- A feature called System Recovery Tool (SRT) is included which is used for bare-metal restores.
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