The DPM console must be
installed with Windows Server
2003 SP1 or R2, as Windows
Server 2008 is not yet supported.
I also recommend that
you install the 64-bit version
of both Windows and DPM 2007, because
memory support is better, and the system
will scale much better than a 32-bit version
will. As a side benefit for Exchange Server
2007 administrators, installing the 64-bit
version of DPM lets you run the native version
of Eseutil against backed up copies of
Exchange databases.
All managed servers must be running
Windows 2003 SP1 or later and have the
KB940349 patch installed. SQL servers must
be either SQL Server 2005 SP1/SP2 or SQL
Server 2000 SP4, and must have the VSS
Writer service running.
To perform an item-level backup of
SharePoint, the SharePoint Web front-end
servers must satisfy their own specific
requirements. This involves installing a
SharePoint-specific patch referenced in the
Microsoft article “Description of the Windows
SharePoint Services 3.0 post-Service
Pack 1 hotfix package: January 31, 2008,”
(support.microsoft.com/kb/941422), starting
the VSS Writer service, and providing the
protection agent with the credentials for the
MOSS/WSS farm. This last step is a bit more
involved, but essentially involves running
the ConfigureSharePoint.exe tool from the
SharePoint Web front-end server. This tool,
located in the \bin subfolder of the DPM
installation directory on the DPM server,
prompts you to enter the farm administrator
credentials for SharePoint. You must re-run
the tool whenever the farm administrator
credentials change.
And, of course, before any backups
can take place from the console, you must
deploy specialized DPM agents to any system
that will be backed up. These agents,
deployed and administered from the console,
as Figure 4 shows, can be pushed out to
systems using an account with local admin
rights on the servers. After you’ve satisfied
all prerequisites and pushed out the agents,
you create the initial backup replicas via the
use of Protection Groups.
Creating a Protection Group
DPM uses the concept of a Protection
Group, such as the ones that Figure 1 shows.
Each Protection Group provides for different
schedules, snapshot frequencies, and
retention ranges, which you configure when
you create the Protection Group. For each
Protection Group, a replica volume and a
recovery point volume is created for each
protected resource. For SharePoint content
databases, this means that each protection
group will create two volumes for every
content database. The recommended sizes
for the replica and recovery point volumes
will change based on criteria you specify
when creating the group, so it’s not a bad
idea to play around with those numbers to
see how performing additional Express Full
Backups or taking snapshots of data more
often increases or decreases recommended
volume size. Bear in mind that the recommended
size for each of these volumes is determined according to the current size
of the database, so you should increase the
volume sizes if you anticipate that content
database size will increase.
It’s crucial that you understand the
difference between a SQL content database
backup and a SharePoint item-level
backup. The SQL content backup is based
on VSS snapshots, but an entire database
would need to be recovered in the event
of data loss. These types of backups are
geared toward scenarios involving disaster
recovery. The SharePoint item-level
backups, which are performed against a
SharePoint Web front-end server, aren’t
snapshot-based, so items can be recovered
only at the point of the last Express Full
Backup, but this type of backup lets you
recover individual items without initiating
a full database restore.
Restoring Content
The Recovery tab of the DPM console is
where administrators can initiate restores
of individual SharePoint items or of entire
SharePoint content databases. You can
restore SharePoint SQL content databases
from SQL backups—either by overwriting
an existing database or recovering it to a
different SQL Server instance or even a flat
network folder.
SharePoint item-level recovery using
the DPM console simply requires navigating
through a folder hierarchy to find the individual document
or list item
and restoring it
to the SharePoint
site. Assuming the
item hasn’t been
archived to tape,
it’s immediately
restored to the site.
Understanding
DPM Licensing
DPM licensing
costs are calculated
according to the
type of server being
backed up. Standard
Windows servers,
such as file servers,
require a DPM
standard license;
application servers
such as Exchange, SQL Server, and Share-
Point servers require an enterprise license.
Your organization might already own DPM
licenses, particularly if you’re invested in
other System Center products such as Operations
Manager 2007 or Configuration Manager
2007. It’s best to check with Microsoft to
see what type of deal you can obtain.
Not Perfect, But...
For those organizations heavily invested
in SharePoint and without a current itemlevel
recovery product in place, DPM is
an excellent choice. DPM is an impressive
product, and there’s something quite
magical about how simple it is to restore
an entire environment painlessly with
a few mouse clicks. It’s not perfect—I’d
personally like to see the ability to install
multiple redundant primary consoles, for
example—but all in all, it’s an excellent
tool to provide for enhanced recovery and
protection capabilities for a SharePoint
2007 environment.