How to backup and restore with Microsoft DPM

Microsoft DPM is a data protection and recovery solution that helps you to protect your business-critical information. This article provides an overview of the backup process, including how to back up, restore, and recover data using DPM.

Microsoft DPM is a backup and recovery tool that allows you to backup and restore data. It can be used with Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2016.

We’ve completed the installation and setup of Microsoft DPM 2019, and now it’s time to build and test a backup operation. I’ll just cover data backup and recovery (AD, File, Exchange, and SQL); I won’t go into bare metal backup and restoration. I don’t typically use Microsoft DPM for bare metal restore since I have alternative tools for it.

Before we get started, let’s have a look at

If you want to learn more about this lab, check out my blog posts on “How to install DPM 2019” and “Configuring DPM 2019.” In those two pieces, I went through all of the details in great detail.

We’ll get to work right away.

Putting Together a Protection Group

Protection Group for Alzheimer’s Disease

I’ll make a few of protective groups – of course, you may do what you think is best for you.

I’ll create an AD protection group, a Group for File Protection, an Group for Exchange Protection, and a SQL Security Group.

Select Protection | New | The wizard to Create a New Protection Group will appear | Next

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I’ll choose Servers | Next.

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On the next page, you’ll see a list of all the servers where you’ve deployed agents (we gone through that in Configuring DPM 2019 guide). We’ll go with DC1.

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A pop-up window will display. Read it, since this is what DPM can’t protect.

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This is what I’m going to protect on my AD – System Protection.

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You will get the following notice if you want to safeguard Sysvol on your AD. SYSVOL and NETLOGON are typically added to their own Protection Group; I will not include those maps in this Protection Group.

DC2 was also added to this Protection Group. Next

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I’m going to call my Protection Group “AD Protection Group,” and I’m going to use disk as a protection mechanism | Next

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I’m going to establish a 10-day retention period. The short-term disk retention rate may be adjusted to a maximum of 448 days. When calculating your retention range, you must account for disk capacity. Every day at 8:00 a.m., I’ll also choose Express Full Backup | Next

This is something you should calculate and think about for yourself; there is no best practice here; it’s all about your requirements.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center/dpm/plan-long-and-short-term-data-storage?view=sc-dpm-2019

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On the next page, you’ll get information about your disk allocation and available storage… So I chose 10 days of retention, which DPM estimated to 54.61GB under “Disk storage to be supplied on DPM.” If I choose, for example, 100 days, the total would be 168GB. It’s usually better to plan your backups, RTOs, and RPOs ahead of time, but if you don’t, DPM will alert you if you don’t have enough space for what you want to do.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION – DPM does not compute disk space properly, resulting in a replica is inconsistent error – the procedures to fix this are listed below, so make sure you follow them. This is the same problem I’ve seen since DPM 2010, and I can’t believe it hasn’t been resolved yet.

Next

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To build an initial replica, you have two options: manually uploading data or automatically beginning over the network. I have to admit that I prefer the manual option since there are times when you can’t get all of the data to backup (like branch office with weak internet connection). I’m going to choose “Automatically over the network” and “Do it Now.” Next

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“Run a consistency check if a replica becomes inconsistent,” I’d want to do next.

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Check the options and choose one. Form a Group

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…

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We can see that the formation of our first Protection Group was a perfect success after a little delay! Close

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Happiness, on the other hand, did not endure long. I proceeded to the protection page and intended to establish another recovery point right away, but I received an error message stating that I needed to conduct a consistency check. I tried it and got the following result: “Replica is inconsistent.” DPM was installed for the first time in a new LAB.

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“DPM dailed to make the backup,” according to the logs. If you’re just storing up System State, make sure you have adequate space on the protected machine to hold the backup. Verify that Windows Server Backup (WSB) is installed and that it is not executing any other backup or recovery tasks on protected machines running WS2008 or above.

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Let’s see if we can fix this on DC2. First and foremost, enable the Windows Server backup feature. (On the Windows Server Backup, do not schedule any tasks!!)

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Create a file share on one network client (with enough of storage space). I established a fileshare on DFS1 and called the share folder DFS1BareMetalShare.

Now, let’s return to the DC2. Start CMD in elevated mode (as Administrator) and enter the backup command as follows.

Replace DFS1BareMetalShare with the name of your network file share.

wbadmin.exe wbadmin.exe wbadmin.exe wbadmin. -allcritical -quiet -backuptarget:DFS1BareMetalShare-backuptarget:DFS1BareMetalShare-backuptarget:DFS1BareMetalShare-backuptarget:DF 1632160922_446_How-to-backup-and-restore-with-Microsoft-DPM

After some time, the backup was finished.

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I proceeded to the location where the backup was stored on the file sharing. The backup is 19.1 GB large.

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So, it seems that DPM calculates data size properly.

I simply activated Windows Server backup on DC1 and then ran a consistency check (without run wbadmin command). It turned out to be satisfactory.

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Okay, now we have a clear picture of the issue.

File Protection Group

I also have two DFS Servers that I’d want to secure. I’m more concerned about my ITDocs file sharing than with the operating system. As a result, I’ll back it up.

I also won’t go through the whole process (because it’s pretty much the same), so I’ll just go over the key portions. I chose IT Docs on both the DFS2 and DFS3 servers (these two are now operational; DFS1, as you can see on the screen, is not).

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File Protection Group was the name I gave to the group.

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There aren’t much information about File Protection Group.

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Everything is OK; I haven’t had any problems with AD protection.

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Exchange Protection Group

Again, I’ll just point out variations since the overall procedure is almost same. I have a DAG set up, so I’ll choose DAG DB1, which will automatically determine that servers ex1 and ex2 are members. If you don’t have DAG, you may choose the location of your database (I enlarged EX1 server to show you – database on E drive, logs on F drive).

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Exchange Protection Group is the name I gave to my Protection Group.

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I want Eseutil to run, and I also want it to run just for log files (since I have DAG in place)

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A minor blunder.

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The files ese.dll and eseutil.dll are stored in C:Exchange Server. Files for Programs V15Bin MicrosoftExchange Server

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I copied them to C: on the server that has my central DPM installation. Microsoft System CenterDPMDPMbin folderProgram FilesMicrosoft System CenterMicrosoft System CenterMicrosoft System CenterMicrosoft System

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After then, backup was activated. Because I have a DAG, it can’t perform a complete backup on both DBs, as the screen below shows. As a result, I chose Ex1 for a complete backup and Ex2 for a copy backup.

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My Exchange Protection Group Settings have resulted in this.

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Everything seems to be in order.

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SQL Protection Group

This will be the final one in this series.

Because SQL is set to Always ON, I’ll backup SQL using SQLCluster. If you just have one SQL server, you can see how it appears above, as I enlarged SQL1.

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The group will be called SQL Protection Group.

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These are the options available.

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I was able to create a group, but I received an error message saying that I was unable to set protection.

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“The DPM task for XY failed because the protection agent did not have administrator rights on the SQL Server instance,” says the message, which has been around for a long time (since early DPM versions).

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Open SSMS and go to Security, expand Logins, find NT AuthoritySYSTEM – right-click on it and choose Properties | expand Server Roles and select sysadmin. Carry out this procedure on all of your SQL servers that are included in the backup.

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Return to your DPM server and perform a consistency check on your SQL protection group by right-clicking it and selecting Perform consistency check. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes

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We were able to eliminate one problem, but a new one emerged: Replica is inconsistent.

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This time, the error code is 3106, which means that the SQL Server instance has refused to connect to the protection agent (ID 30172).

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When you have an Always On replica, this error will display. Return to your SQL server and launch SSMS. Expand Always ON High Availability and right-click on the database you’re protecting and backing up – in my instance, TopDB | Properties. Change Readable Secondary from No to Yes under General | Availability Replicas.

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This is how it should seem.

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Finally, after doing a consistency check, everything seemed to be in order.

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Okay, the backups are complete, everything is green, and we can go on to the recovery portion.

How can I get my data back from DPM?

I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’ll simply show you how to restore data from the backups we just made.

I’m going to leave the AD and bare metal recovery guides I chose at the start for another guide. Here, I’ll teach you how to restore files and databases fast.

Recovering Data

Okay, I’ll go ahead and remove the file NewBeginnings.txt from the file server.

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Deleted

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Whatever you do, the procedure is the same (be it file, db or bare metal restore) In the DPM Administrator Console, go to the Recovery section | Select the server you want to restore – in my instance, DFS2 – and extend it to the E disk, which contains my ITDocs folder. Choose a day and time when you want to get back on track. I don’t have many options here, so it’ll be 7:31 a.m.

Finally, expand the ITDocs folder by clicking on it.

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That’s fantastic, I’ve removed the file NewBeginnings.txt from my backup. Recover it by right-clicking on it.

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Next, a new wizard emerges.

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I would want to return to my original location | Next

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On the next page, you may choose what the system should do if a copy of the file already exists (I chose Create copy) and Apply the destination computer’s security settings (this will restore user privileges to the file/folder). Next

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Let’s get back on track.

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The recuperation, according to the DPM, was a success.

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Yes, it was — the file has been restored!

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SQL Server Redundancy

I made a backup of the AlwaysON database. I then removed the AlwaysON group as well as the database. I’m sometimes asked whether there’s a method to perform granular recovery, as with files, and just recover one table. No, you can restore the whole database and then export/copy the table to the database you require.

Because I have a cluster, I am unable to choose Recover to original instance of SQL after starting recovery. If I choose Recover to any SQL server instance,

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I’m unable to restore my SQLCluster since the cluster was also destroyed when I deleted the AlwaysOn SQL group.

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In this situation, I believe the quickest and best solution is to just establish a file share and transfer the database to that file share. After that, you may connect the database to SQL, rebuild the cluster, and AlwaysON – before backing up. If you’re in a scenario like this, this is the quickest option.

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I established the SQL1DBRestore file sharing and chose it as the destination for the restoration.

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Configure the security settings

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Let’s get this party started.

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Done

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DB is, in fact, in place.

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I cleaned up the directory a little so there aren’t as many subdirs, and I gave my SQL user (sqldb admin) full rights on the database, logs folder, and log file, as well as making it the owner of the database and logs.

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I went into SQL SSMS and unchecked the DBs box. Attach a database – choose a database file and a log directory and file!

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The database is connected, and all of the tables and data are in place.

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In this scenario, I’d have to restore cluster and AlwaysON replication, but that’s a minor issue once I get my data back.

Recovery of Exchange

When compared to SQL, the situation on the Exchange server is a bit better. We can restore mailboxes (not individual emails! – for that, you’ll need to set up a retention policy).

In our exchange server, we have a mailbox for test.user2.

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That user will be removed from the system.

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On Ex1 Server, I also built a Recovery database called RDB1 so that I could restore mailboxes to it. On Exchange Server Ex1, we need to build a new recovery database using Exchange Powershell.

-Recovery -EdbFilePath E:ExDBRDB1.edb -LogFolderPath F:LogsRDB1 -New-MailboxDatabase -Server EX1 -Name RDB1 -Recovery -EdbFilePath E:ExDBRDB1.edb -EdbFilePath E:ExDBRDB1.edb -EdbF 1632160952_448_How-to-backup-and-restore-with-Microsoft-DPM

Service Exchange Information Store must be restarted!

Don’t be fooled: RDB isn’t visible in ECP; you can only handle it via Powershell!

Restore Database should be mounted.

RDB1-Database-Mount

Finally, we must set the overwrite flag for our RDB database.

set-mailboxdatabase RDB1 -AllowFileRestore $true set-mailboxdatabase RDB1 -AllowFileRestore $true set-mailboxdatabase R 1632160952_123_How-to-backup-and-restore-with-Microsoft-DPM

Let’s attempt to resurrect the user and observe what happens to the mailbox’s contents.

There will be a test. Let’s restore user2 from our backup.

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I’ll get it back into the Exchange server database.

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Ex1 is the name of the Exchange server, and RDB1 is the name of the recovery database. This was something I had planned for. It’s not a good idea to restore to your production/normal database!

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Let’s see if we can get the database back.

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Despite the fact that the recovery database’s overwrite flag was set, I received error 30174: “Recovery failed for Exchange Mailbox Database because the overwrite flag is not set for…”

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Ex1, Ex2 server, and DPM backup server were all restarted.

After that, I launched Exchange management shell as an administrator on Ex1 and ran the commands below.

RDB1 displayed AllowFileRestore as False for some reason, so I ran the command again to make it true.

Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity RDB1 -AllowFileRestore $true Get-MailboxDatabase | Select Name, Identity, and AllowFileRestore 1632160955_417_How-to-backup-and-restore-with-Microsoft-DPM

I knew I wasn’t going insane because whenever I tried to restore a mailbox and it failed with the error above or event id 2033, the AllowFileRestore flag was reset.

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This is something I’ve done before, and I’ve recorded it (for myself) – it works. I wasted 2.5 hours trying to figure out what was going on, but I couldn’t.

So, for the time being, it seems that we are unable to restore an item to Exchange.

Conclusion

Given that this is a Microsoft product designed to protect other Microsoft products, it contains far too many flaws. I originally wrote about DPM on this blog in 2014 – I’ve been using it for a long time (albeit not as a primary product somewhere) and I’m still amazed at how many problems I have with it every time I use it.

Anyway, it works great once you get it to function, but getting it to work may be a lengthy and difficult process.

Finally, after you get over all of the setup and configuration problems, I have to say I appreciate the product’s dependability.

Disclaimer

Microsoft DPM is a backup and restore solution that allows users to back up and restore data. This solution can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. Reference: microsoft dpm download.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I restore using DPM?

To restore a saved game, you will need to use the DPM (Data Pack Management) tool that is included in the Beat Saber install folder.

How does DPM backup work?

DPM backup is a method of saving your game progress to an external hard drive. This allows you to save your game in case the PS4 crashes or if it is stolen, and also allows you to play on any console that has the same version of the game.

How does DPM backup SQL Server?

DPM backups SQL Server by taking a snapshot of the database. It then replays that snapshot to restore the database.

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