Extend DPM Schema manually

In one of the project, somehow or rather, not be able to use DPM management console to extend the schema. Lots of people is looking for the manual way to extend DPM schema. There is also a time why you need to do so, to extend this feature to other trusted domain users to have end user recovery.

Steps:

Copy the following file in DPM server \Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\End User Recovery\DPMADSchemaExtension.exe. Run it in your forest. (Note: you will need to have schema admin and domain admin on the forest)

In the Enter Data Protection Manager Computer Name dialog box, type the name of the computer for which you want end-user recovery data in Active Directory Domain Services, and then click OK.

Type the DNS domain name of the DPM computer for which you want end-user recovery data in Active Directory Domain Services, and then click OK.

In the Active Directory Configuration for Data Protection Manager dialog box, click OK.

Wait for a while, it will then show you the result.

Once extended, you can then enable the end user recovery by:

In DPM Administrator Console, on the Action menu, click Options.

In the Options dialog box, on the End-user Recovery tab, select the check box for the Enable end-user recovery option, and then click OK.

Not be able to see SQL interface in DPM protection group

In one of the recent deployment, when to protect a SQL server 2005, we are not be able to see the SQL interface.

All the pre-req is met. With few hours of checking, noticed that there is one DB, which is the root cause of the problem. This DB ends with "blank".

After bringing the DB offline, we can then see the SQL interface and protect other DB.

A good experience. We are in DPM SP1, running on Windows 2008.

Multiple protection group to one tape (Data Colocation)

In DPM 2007, one protection group to allocate in one tape.

However, DPM 2007 allows to collocate protection groups on a tape. Then, you can group recovery points of multiple protection groups on a single tape. This will save the tape if you have lots of protection group. This feature, called Data Colocation.

To enable and disable this feature, please download and install KB 949779 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=122329).

After install the update, you can then enable or disable data colocation using DPM Management Shell.

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DPMServerName -OptimizeTapeUsage $True

DPM and SAN

Is there any benefits if you have your data in SAN and use a DPM to protect it? For sure it has.

Lets say you have Exchange data stored in a SAN, and you would like to protect using DPM. If your Exchange is running on CCR (Cluster Continuous Replication), you will be able to backup DPM from a passive node.

Few things for you to start with if you have a SAN:
(NOTE: you will want to ask from your SAN vendor about the features that you can use/supported using DPM)

1) Replica. As the first replica of your DB/Data, you can make use of the "clone", this will save your time and performance from getting the data from the original server through a network.

2) Recovery. You can make use of SAN based recovery in DPM. What this will do is, instead of recover through network, you make use of SAN based recovery, this will save your network bandwidth as well as time to recover.

DPM - data recovery

In one of our DPM deployment, there are some questions on the data recovery side of DPM. Just to share:

DPM created "point-in-time" copy of the replica during the set schedule (can be 15 mins, can be an hour, depending on your data type - files and folder is one hour and supported applications like Exchange and SQL is about 15 minutes). DPM will be able to maintains up to 64 recovery points for files/folders and 448 express full with 96 incremental backups!

So, if you calculate in detail, you have more than 300,000 recovery points in a year if you put your short term recovery to disk, or mix of disk and tape.

Control the location for SMSPKG$ share

SMS & SCCM distribution point by default will always look for the most free disk space drive and create the SMSPKG$ share resided on the drive. If you did not manage it properly, the SMSPKG$ share may exist on multiple drive and those shared content might content different package source and it is very hard for you to consolidate those content into single location.

Some of you may asking is that possible to dedicate a specific location and prevent the distribution point from creating the shared everywhere? Answer is Yes, we can do that. Below are the simple steps to accomplish the task:

1. On the target drive (where you would like to store the distribution package), create a shared folder and grant permission for SCCM service account & machine account.
2. In ConfigMgr console, browse to site system, then create a server share.
   
3. Specify the server share as distribution point, and then remove the default distribution point (If you perform this in production envinronment, make sure you backup all your distribution packages first).

After the above action been done, you will notice that the SMSPKG$ will only create under the shared folder you specified.

AD schema is not extended or SLP is not present. Cannot continue site assignment

You may received the error - "AD schema is not extended or SLP is not present. Cannot continue site assignment." log in LocationServices.log when the SCCM client is successfully installed on the machine, but the SCCM client failed to discover primary site.

If the above entry is log, there are few things you may need to look into before you proceed with further action:

1. Is the Management Point publish in Active Directory?
   
2. Is the Management Point publish in DNS?
3. If you are using WINS for name resolution, you may need SLP registered in WINS.

How if the above components are already in-place but the SCCM client is still failed to discover primary site?

Another simple trick, try to verify your network DNS & WINS settings, the SCCM client may failed to assign to primary site due to incorrect assignment of DNS & WINS address.