Microsoft DPM

Dealing with "Suspect Tapes" in Microsoft DPM 2012 R2

posted 27 Apr 2015, 00:25 by Tristan Self

Sometimes a tape will be marked as suspect, seemingly for no reason. To resolve this you need to do the follow these instructions to first identify the MediaID of the suspect tape against its Barcode. Then mark it as normal (i.e. not suspect).

Ensure there is a backup of the SQL database for DPM. In SQL Query analyser:

First run a query of the tapes to get a list of suspect tapes:

select MediaId
FROM [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia]
WHERE IsSuspect = 1

You can join this with the other table to match up the IsSuspect field:

SELECT [BarcodeValue], [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia].[MediaID]
FROM [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_Media]
ON [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia].[MediaID]=[DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_Media].[MediaID]
WHERE IsSuspect = 1

This gives you all the suspect tapes. Then to query for that one duff tape by the MediaID.

select *
FROM [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia]
WHERE IsSuspect = 1

Lets say you want to mark tape mediaID = 6A146B3C-3DC9-4711-AF1D-9E826AF7979C as not suspect. In this case:000209L4 Like this:

select *
FROM [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia]
WHERE IsSuspect = 1 AND MediaID = '6A146B3C-3DC9-4711-AF1D-9E826AF7979C'

To double check it. Then update the issuspect field with this:

UPDATE [DPMDB].[dbo].[tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia]
SET IsSuspect = 0
WHERE IsSuspect = 1 AND MediaID = '6A146B3C-3DC9-4711-AF1D-9E826AF7979C'

Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA - Adapter(s) Disabled by User

posted 5 Sept 2014, 00:39 by Tristan Self

Upon booting the Dell PowerEdge R720 server with two Dell 6Gbps SAS HBAs that are installed and connected to a two drive Dell PowerVault TL4000 I got this error message

Turns out this is a normal error. Page 25 of ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_dell_adapters/dell-sas-hba-6gbps_User's%20Guide_en-us.pdf

Basically because it is a tape HBA, the error is saying it cant be used to boot off it.

The HBAs and connected drives worked fine from within Windows, just a bit odd to see an error like this!

Microsoft DPM 2012 R2 Reporting Services Doesn't Work

posted 26 Aug 2014, 05:27 by Tristan Self [ updated 26 Aug 2014, 05:37 ]

This was an issue when trying to setup a scheduled job in DPM, you can run reports but you can't set an automatic report.

Platform:

System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 R2

SQL Server installed locally with DPM 2012 R2

Problem:

Error ID 3001:- Reporting Services Server cannot connect to the DPM database

when configure reporting schedule.

Solution:

1. Open the reports server that were installed: http://<HOSTNAME>/Reports_MSDPM2012/

2. Click on the "DPMReports_fh7f734hfywefs" (your link will be different)

3. Click on DPMReporterDataSource so you can see the properties.

4. Click on the "Properties" tab on the left.

5. For the connect using: change this to:

Username: DPMR$HOSTNAME

Password: <whatever you put in your installer for DPM 2012>

Tick the box for "Use as Windows Credentials when connecting to the data source."

6. Now test the connection, and click Apply. Try again and you should be good to go.

http://www.ms4u.info/2014/01/reporting-services-server-cannot.html

DPM Reporting Broken after an Upgrade to New Hardware

posted 9 Jan 2014, 10:21 by Tristan Self

PROBLEM:

You upgraded DPM after the upgrade you can click to run any reports in "Reporting" within the DPM console and you get an error like the following:

Cannot open database "DPMDB" requested by the login. The login failed. Login failed for user ‘%servername%\DPMR$%servername%.

CAUSE:

The account ‘%servername%\DPMR$%servername%. doesn’t have the correct mappings for the DPM database, therefore the reporting services cannot access the database to pull out the information to make the reports.

SOLUTION:

Open your DPM 2012 instance using SQL management studio.

Then expand the Security node, then Logins; right-click %servername%\DPMDBReaders$%servername% and select properties.

Select User Mapping on the left hand side; in the upper right pane, under "Users mapped to this login:" verify DPMDB is selected; In lower right pane, ensure db_datareader and public are both selected; click OK.

Now try the report again, it should work.

After Upgrading to DPM 2012 SP1 SQL Maintenance Tasks are Inaccessible

posted 9 Jan 2014, 10:17 by Tristan Self

PROBLEM:

Using Microsoft DPM 2012 SP1 with the locally installed SQL 2008 R2 SP2 instance (i.e. the one that DPM installs) once installed, you can't get into the Maintenance tasks using SQL Management Studio. Clicking on Maintenance Tasks gives you an error:

The task with the name "Task Name XXX" and the creation name "Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.DatabaseMaintenance.DbMaintenanceFileXXXTask, Microsoft.SqlServer.MaintenancePlanTasks, Version=XXX, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=XXX" is not registered for use on this computer.

The message may also say you need to install the Management Tools, but when you check they are already installed, repairing the SQL install makes no difference.

SOLUTION:

Not the best solution adding more permissions than I'd like to a service account, but it at least got it working, check the account you are using for the SQL server service account. In my case to fix it all I had to do was to add the SQL server service account that DPM had used for SQL to the local Administrators group on the server. Then restart SQL server. After this you can access the maintenance tasks without an error.

DPM Email Notification Errors

posted 13 Jun 2013, 07:04 by Tristan Self

An odd one, you need to configure SQL Reporting Services first with the correct FROM: email address, email server and port. Once you have done that you won't get the error message about reporting services not be configured, however you are likely then to get this error.

DPM 2010 Administrator Console->Management->Options->Notifications

Entering a valid email address and clicking "Send Test Notification" results in it saying:

ID: 2013

Details: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password

DPM 2010 requires ALL the fields under the SMTP Server options to be filled in regardless if your SMTP server accepts anonymous connections or not.

This is a known bug, and there's little that can be done about the error you get in the SMTP tab of the options menu other than using a valid username and password with a mailbox on the Exchange server. However I found that if I deleted this key from the registry, I was able to send notifications successfully:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Notification

Just delete all of "Notification" and then reopen DPM, and test, you should find it works.

DPM 2007 and DPM 2010 - Remove Damaged Tape from Database

posted 15 May 2013, 01:26 by Tristan Self [ updated 29 May 2013, 00:36 ]

Tapes are basically sticky tape and rust, therefore they are liable to break especially your weekly rotation ones, just because they get wear and tear. When this happens and the tape is no longer able to be used, we need to remove it from DPM to stop it appearing the in the tape request reports. With DPM, there isn't anyway to remove the tape using the GUI so you need to run a SQL script to get rid of the tape and stop it asking for something you can never put into the tape drive.

1. First get hold of the tape label name, for example: 000013L4

2. Next backup your DPMDB database, this is a must, if this script corrupts it you want to be able to restore. You can do this by:

2.1 DPMBACKUP -db (The database will be saved in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\Volumes\ShadowCopy\Database Backups folder.)

2.2 Microsoft SQL Management Studio - Start off a (copy) backup of the DB and store it somewhere safe.

3. Now open the Microsoft SQL Management Studio, open a "new query", select the DPMDB database as the target for the operation.

4. Now paste into the window the following:

---------- START COPY HERE -------------

-- overdue tapes
-- for clarity, set up the parameter as a variable

declare @paramTapeLabel as nvarchar(256)
set @paramTapeLabel = 'SAMPLE_TAPE_LABEL_NAME'

-- keys
declare @vMediaId as guid
declare @vGlobalMediaId as guid

-- if the delete gives trouble, add keyset after cursor
declare cur_label cursor
for select MediaId, GlobalMediaId
from tbl_MM_Media
where label = @paramTapeLabel;

open cur_label
while (0 = 0)
begin
fetch next from cur_label into @vMediaId, @vGlobalMediaId

-- test for being done
if @@fetch_status <> 0 break;

print 'Deleting MediaId = ' + cast(@vMediaId as varchar(36))

-- do a set of deletes atomically
begin transaction;
delete from tbl_MM_TapeArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_MediaMap
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Global_ArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vGlobalMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Global_Media
where MediaId = @vGlobalMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Media
where current of cur_label;

commit transaction;

end
close cur_label
deallocate cur_label

-------------- END COPY HERE ----------------------

5. Alter the line @paramtapelabel where the N'SAMPLE_TAPE_LABEL_NAME' should be replaced with: '000013L4' (that's right you leave in the single quotes, or it won't work.)

6. Now execute the script, assuming it worked without error, that's it the tape has been deleted from the database.

7. You should find that the next tape report won't contain the faulty tape as it no longer knows about it and the job will use a new one instead.

CITATION: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/fr-FR/dpmtapebackuprecovery/thread/dede3c6c-aa37-440e-9205-25008d89059b

I've repeated this post on my site as its too good to lose to the Interwebs.

UPDATE for Microsoft DPM 2010

If you are using Microsoft DPM 2010, you need to adjust the code slightly, because the name has been changed of one of the columns where it has the Label = @paramTapeLabel; you need to change this to BarcodeValue = @paramTapeLabel; instead. Now when you run this script you should see 5 or 6 results saying:

Deleting MediaId = 5DCFFDBC-29E9-4572-B1C1-BE1A9A10A237

(1 row(s) affected)

(5 row(s) affected)

(1 row(s) affected)

-- overdue tapes
-- for clarity, set up the parameter as a variable
declare @paramTapeLabel as nvarchar(256)
set @paramTapeLabel = '000013L4'

-- keys
declare @vMediaId as guid
declare @vGlobalMediaId as guid

-- if the delete gives trouble, add keyset after cursor
declare cur_label cursor
for select MediaId, GlobalMediaId
from tbl_MM_Media
where BarcodeValue = @paramTapeLabel;

open cur_label
while (0 = 0)
begin
fetch next from cur_label into @vMediaId, @vGlobalMediaId
-- test for being done
if @@fetch_status <> 0 break;

print 'Deleting MediaId = ' + cast(@vMediaId as varchar(36))
-- do a set of deletes atomically
begin transaction;
delete from tbl_MM_TapeArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_MediaMap
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_ArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Global_ArchiveMedia
where MediaId = @vGlobalMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Global_Media
where MediaId = @vGlobalMediaId;

delete from tbl_MM_Media
where current of cur_label;

commit transaction;

end
close cur_label
deallocate cur_label

This seemed to cure the problem for me.

Sharepoint 2007 with DPM 2010 - Item Level Backup Items not Appearing for Restoration

posted 15 Oct 2011, 00:56 by Tristan Self [ updated 23 Apr 2013, 04:57 ]

When Backup Sharepoint 2007, with DPM 2010, it catalougues MOSS items every 24 hours , if you need to force this operation to be able to restore item you can use powershell command. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff634233.aspx. Note this operation happens out of band from the normal backup, sometimes it will fail even though the backup is successful.

I had the problem that I had created a backup but items were missing when i tried to restore, so i forced creation of the recovery point looked at the back, but no still no new item to restore.

I then found that a separate process performs the catalog of the items each day. Without this the list of items doesn't get updated, so even though they have been backed up they don't appear for item level restore.

----------------------------------------------------------------
To force the Catalog Process
----------------------------------------------------------------

this is how to enter the command, you must enter your datasource as variable, use the below

$pg1 = get-protectiongroup –dpmservername yourdpmservername

Now run: $pg1

This will show a list of the protection groups, counting from 0 from the top down, make a note of the number of the line coresponding to the protection group you are interested in.

$ds1 = Get-Datasource –ProtectionGroup $pg1[x]
(where x is the line number you’re interested in)

Now run: $ds1
This will show a list of all the data sources. Counting from "0" from the top down. In my case the sharepoint farm protection object was number "11" so I then run this command putting the number 11 into the square brackets.

start-createcatalog -datasource $ds1[11]

DPM will start catalogue, wait for it to complete, then you shoudl be able to see your object for restoration.

Or, you may also run this command:

Get-ProtectionGroup yourdpmservername | get-datasource | where-object {$_.type -like "*sharepoint*"} | start-createcatalog

This will automatically run the createcatalog for any datasource matching "sharepoint", this command will show the catalog is running, but then a few errors, the errors are it trying to process a catalog update on something that is not a catalog, and can be ignored safely.

Recommended DPM 2010 Hotfixes and Patches

posted 24 Aug 2011, 00:31 by Tristan Self

Correct Microsoft DPM patch levels are critical to the server operating properly. You should ensure that the primary and secondary servers are both running exactly the same hotfixes on DPM and on the OS at all times.

Hotfix Updates Applied to DPM
These are hotfixes that have been installed on DPM to specifically fix a problem or to ensure the system works correctly. Thy have been added manually by a system administrator.
1.	Update for Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2010 (KB2250444) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2250444
2.	Update for Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2010 (KB2465832) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2465832 For the IBM Library and others: Add the following registry key and value: Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent DWORD: RSMCompatMode Value: 29 (Decimal) (this still needs to be done.)

Hotfix Updates Applied to the Operating System
These are hotfixes that have been installed on the OS to specifically fix a problem or to ensure the system works correctly. Thy have been added manually by a system administrator. They have been done to ensure that DPM interfaces correctly with the components of the OS it makes use of.
1	Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB2460907) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460907
2	Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB975928) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975928
3	Hotfix for Microsoft Windows (KB962975) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962975
4.	Event ID 82 may be recorded in the System log after you extend the protected dynamic volume on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 (KB2279787) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2279787

DPM 2007 - Volume Missing

posted 12 Jun 2011, 07:00 by Tristan Self

After a power cut, (before the UPS was installed!), on booting back up the DPM 2007 server, the server showed loads of replica disks saying "Volume Missing", before i crying, it tried the following to get DPM to pick them back up and it appeared to work ok:

Run the command below to enable auto-detect of new volumes.

Mountvol /e

Rescan for disks in the COmputer Management Disk Management.

Then in DPM 2007 Console
DPM 2007 -> Management -> Disks -> Select DIsk 1
Click Rescan and wait.

Repeat for all the disks you have.

Then go back to the "monitoring" tab. And select alerts you should see all this missing disk alerts disappear. Once gone mop up any other warnings and run some synchs on the disks that were missing just to be sure. But that should resolve the problem.

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