Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 allows you to protect client computers - desktops and laptops. Backup administrators can centrally configure data protection for the desktops and laptops in their environment. Additionally, administrators can give their end users the ability to define and manage their own backups. DPM 2010 enables end users to perform their own recoveries by leveraging the Previous Versions feature in Windows.

In this article I will show how to protect client using DPM2010

in the protection group tab , click on the left site on Create protection Group, that will open a window has two choices , backup servers or Backup Clients , in our case we are going to select Clients , then click Next

Note

If you want to add multiple computers, you can create a .txt file containing the computers you want to add. To add the computers, click Add Multiple Computers. You must enter each computer in the file on a new line. We recommend that you provide the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the target computers. For example, enter multiple computers in a .txt file as follows:

Comp1.abc.domaian.com
Comp2.abc.domain.com
Comp3.abc.domain.com

If DPM cannot find any of the computers that you specified in the .txt file or that you entered in the Text file location box, the failed set of computers is placed in a log file. Click the Failed to add machines link at the bottom of the page to open the log file.

in the Select Group Member window select the client that you wish  in my case I would like to backup W7D.gomaalab.local

On the Specify Inclusions and Exclusions page, specify the folders to include or exclude for protection on the selected computers.

a. Type the folder names in the Folder column using variables such as %programfiles%, or you can use the exact folder name. Select Include or Exclude for each entry in the Rule column.

b. Select Allow users to specify protection members to give your end users the choice to add more folders on the computer that they want to back up. However, the files and folders you have explicitly excluded as an administrator cannot be selected by the end user.

c. Under File type exclusions specify the file types to exclude using their file extensions, and then click Next to continue.

in the select Data protection method,  select the  protection method that suite your need either short-term or long-term , then click Next

click next , and specify your short-term recovery goal

notice there is  new option to specify after how long DPM will raise an alert if the Client will not be available for backup, in my case I configured for 18 days 

On the Allocate Storage page, specify the size of data to be protected on the computer. I recommend that you co-locate multiple data sources to one DPM replica volume. Click Next to continue.

Note

I recommend that you co-locate your data if you have a large number of client computers. You will not be able to protect 750 or more client computers with one DPM server without co-locating your data. I recommend that you do not co-locate if you have less than ten client computers in a protection group.

in the summary window  click create Group then close

Islam Gomaa

Islam @ IslamGomaa.com

Data Protection Manager 2010 is part of the System Center family of management products from Microsoft. It delivers unified data protection for Windows servers such as SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, Virtualization and file servers -- as well as Windows desktops and laptops. DPM is designed as a best-of-breed backup & recovery solution for Windows environments from Microsoft. DPM provides the best protection and most supportable restore scenarios of your Windows environment from disk, tape and cloud. Windows customers of all sizes can rely on Microsoft to provide a scalable and manageable protection solution that is cost-effective, secure and reliable.

 

Feature Summary

• Protection for Windows clients, while they are online or offline, with easy-to-use wizards for establishing protection, retention and alert schedules. A single DPM server can protect over 1,000 Windows clients, while end users are able to restore their own data using Windows Explorer or Microsoft Office.
• Protection of Microsoft Virtualization platforms, including Hyper-V R2 Live Migration / Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) configurations. DPM can also restore single-file items from host-based VM backups.
• Enhanced Protection for SQL Server, scaling to over 2,000 databases per DPM server, and offering auto-protection of new databases per SQL instance. DBA’s can now restore their own databases, through a self-service restore utility for SQL Server.
• Enhanced Protection of Exchange Server, scaling to over 40TB of email and support for Exchange 2010 Database Availability Groups (DAG), as well as CCR/SCR in Exchange 2007.
• Enhanced Protection for SharePoint, without the requirement for a recovery farm with SharePoint 2010, and scaling up to 25TB farms with over 1M items. New content databases are now auto-protected without administrator interaction.
• DPM 2010 is truly enterprise-ready, scaling to over 100 servers with over 80TB per DPM server, and includes new Auto-grow, Auto-heal, Auto-protect features for a lights-out reliable protection and recovery solution.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2008 R2

.NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package
Windows PowerShell 2.0
DPM 2010 must be installed on a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit computer that is located in an Active Directory domain that is running in 2003-mode or better.
DPM 2010 can protect machines running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows Server 2003, 2003 R2, 2008 or 2008 R2, as well Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.
If you are protecting data over a wide area network (WAN), there is a minimum network bandwidth requirement of 512 kilobits per second (Kbps).

Try Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 RTM free for 180 days

Building your own DPM server doesn't mean getting all the components and build a server as these old days,  this what you can do.

Dell offers the  PowerEdge R200 with 8 GB ram and mirrored SAS drive  with 10K RPM and QNAP offers  the TS-809U-RP Turbo NAS that offers  14 TB on RAID 5. combining both Hardware you can build your own DPM appliance for less than 6000 $.

ISlam Gomaa

ISlam @ IslamGomaa.com

param (
[string[]]$dpmserverlist = @()
)
#region traps
trap [Exception] {
    writelog $("TRAP: DPMinactivateAlert: $Error")
    $Error >> $logfile
    $log = Get-EventLog -List | Where-Object { $_.Log -eq "Application" }
    $log.Source = "DPMinactiveAlert"
    $log.WriteEntry("TRAP: DPMinactiveAlert: $error", [system.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType]::Error,9911)
    writelog $Error
    $Error.Clear()
    exit 1
}
#endregion
#region functions
function writelog
{
    #write to console and logfile, pre-able with date time
    param([array]$msg)
    $dt = (Get-Date).ToString("MM/dd/yy HH:ss")
    "$dt :: " >> $logfile
    if ($debug) {Write-Host "$dt :: " -NoNewline}
    for ($i = 0;$i -lt $msg.count;$i++) {
        if ($debug) {Write-Host $msg[$i]}
        $msg[$i] >> $logfile
    }
}

function LoadDPMsnapin {
    #load PS snap-in if not already
    param ()
    if (Get-PSSnapin | ?{$_.name -like "Microsoft.DataProtectionManager.PowerShell"}) {
    }
    else {
        Add-PSSnapin -name Microsoft.DataProtectionManager.PowerShell
    }
}
#endregion

#START
$debug = $true
$Error.clear()
$version = "v1.1"
[datetime]$now = Get-Date
$format = "HH:mm:ss"
LoadDPMsnapin
$logfile = "{0}\DPMinactiveAlert.LOG" -f , (get-location)
writelog "DPMinactivateAlert $version`n log output is written to $logfile`n`n"
$srv = Connect-DPMServer $env:computername
$alctl = $srv.AlertController
$alctl.RefreshAlerts()
Writelog ("Inactivating {0} alerts" -f $alctl.ActiveAlerts.Count )
#Don't log, alerts go to inactive and are still accessible
#could filter on $a.ErrorInfo.RecommendedAction to be "None"
if ($srv.GetProductInformation().version.major -gt 2 ){
    foreach ($a in $alctl.ActiveAlerts.Values) {$a.ResolveAlert()}
}
else {
    foreach ($a in $alctl.ActiveAlerts) {$a.ResolveAlert()}
}
writelog "Done inactivating alerts!"

In Windows Server 2008 you can add your iSCSI disks to the DPM server, make them dynamic and then add the disk into the DPM storage pool and you're done.  

In Windows Server 2003 you follow the same steps but when rebooted the server, you'll notice that all your iSCSI disks are offline.  The disks can be brought back online manually in disk management but this is not really a practical solution, the disks can also be brought online by opening the DPM console on the server, but again this solution is equally impractical.

To resolve the problem, change the start up type of the DPM service to Automatic.  By doing this, your iSCSI dynamic disks will be brought online automatically after reboot.

One final point thought though, if you are deploying DPM please consider using Windows Server 2008 x64 as the base Operating System as not only will you have better performance but you'll also be fully prepared to upgrade to DPM 2010 next year.  DPM 2010 will only be supported on Windows Server 2008 x64 so to avoid any upgrades, rebuilds and all the associated problems that cam with upgrading and rebuilding, use Server 2008 x64 if you can !

If you are a Small Medium Business looking for a non expensive backup storage solution, I recommend QNAP Appliance  specially TS-809U-RP Turbo NAS it support up to 8 disk 2 TB each and provide Total Throughput 114.9 MB/sec  on Read and 103.1 on Write.

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