System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 - Deployment Requirements and Process - Part 1

Hello Everyone,

This post is to share knowledge about a component of System Center Suite know as System Center Data Protection Manager. 

In our production environment, it is very important to protect our data like Databases, System Files or complete virtual servers. Microsoft provides an enterprise solutions to protect our environment data in very simple and easy way with help of System Center Data Protection Manager Tool. 

Using this tool, You can take full or incremental backup of Your data from source location to destination location.

Let's start with understanding some key points about this tool and then will see deployment process.

Benefits:

Below are the main purpose for using DPM:

• Backup: Backup from windows server, windows client computers, SQL database and supported applications.
• Storage: You can take backup to disks, take or cloud using DPM.
• Recover: You can recover data from backed-up location to original location or any other location as per your requirement.

NOTE: See here supported scenarios for DPM 2012 R2! and See here for Update Rollups for DPM 2012 R2!

Other benefits (Use latest update rollup):

• Support for Azure backup.
• Support for SQL Always On backup (Need to create Login NT ATHURITY\DPMRA with "sysadmin" permission)
• Support protection for Windows VMs on VMware.
• Can monitor it with SCOM with new DPM Management Pack.
• Support to take backup in Azure Backup vault and then You can recover data from any of registered DPM in Azure Backup Vault.
• Support for data backup on client machines running windows 10.
• Support for backup of Database running SQL Server 2014.

Pre-requisites (I have explained as per my lab environment - Installed on VM):

• DPM 2012 R2 ISO (Can be installed on Hyper-V Server or VM)
• SQL Server 2012 SP1 or SP2 Enterprise or Standard 64 Bit (Can be installed locally or remotely)
• Dedicated Disks for Backup storage (Atleast 2-3 times of protected data size planned) 
• RAM - 8 GB
• CPU - 4
• Disk - 50 GB (Enough for DPM)

Other Pre-Requisites:

• Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0
• Windows Installer 4.5 or later
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable
• Windows Powershell 3.0

NOTE: 

• SQL Always ON and SQL Server 2014 is not supported.
• Installation on Clustered Node, Operation Manager Server or Any Application Server is not supported

SCDPM 2012 R2 - Deployment Process:

SQL Server 2012 SP1 Installation - Creating DPM DB Instance:

I have installed DPM DB locally on the same machine.

Below are the steps:

Run SQL Server 2012 SP1 setup:

After Checking prerequisites, Click Next on Setup support rules:

Accept licence terms and click next:

Select required features and choose path for installation:

In Instance Configuration, choose either default or give named instance and click next:

Provide Service Account details and check Collation:

NOTE: Service account must be member of local administrator group of the machine and DPM Support collation: "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS".

In Database Engine Configuration, choose Mixed Mode, Provide "SA" credentials and add SQL service account with other required accounts:

You can select configuring Reporting Service or You can configure later:

Click Next and at last monitor if installation is successful:

After installation, If You had selected Reporting Service to Install Only then configure it with new database:

Once You configure it then open the Sql Server Management Studio to see if Reporting Server DB is created:

SCDPM 2012 R2 - Installation Process:

After database is configured, Start installing DPM 2012 R2:

NOTE: If You have install SQL on remote machine then You have to Run DPM setup on the same machine to first install "DPM Remote SQL Prep".

If SQL is installed locally then skip this step and Click on Data Protection Manager:

Accept licence terms and click OK:

Provide SQL Server name and Click on Check and Install:

After prerequisites check is completed, click next:

Provide Product Key and Click Next:

Click Next:

Select option as per your requirement and click next:

Click Next and at last monitor job if installation is completed successfully:

Open DPM 2012 R2 Console:

Installation is completed.

After that, Download Update Rollup 8 for SCDPM 2012 R2 and install it.

In my next post, I will explain:

• Agent installation
• Backup Type
• Backup process

Happy Reading!!!

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