System Center Data Protection Manager V2 Beta1

As of today you can download System Center Data Protection Manager V2 Beta 1 (DPM V2). To download the beta bits just go and apply for the beta program onto the connect site.

How does DPM works? Well you install an agent onto the servers you want to backup and the agent will capture all changes and put this into a sync log, every 15 minutes data is pulled to the DPM server. We only copy the byte level changes which reduces the amount of data to transfer over the wire and make this product interesting to use for remote locations backup.

Once the data is onto the DPM server you can do different things to it, you could create snapshots of the data by using the VSS technology or you could back it up towards tape drive

Because we are talking about disk to disk backup we can have a very fast restoration time and even the end-users could restore their data backup by using the DPM client which will shows them which versions of their files are available for restore.

What's new to DPM V2:

DPM offers integrated support for E12 CCR and LCR clusters, shorter SQL backup windows without the need for compression, and integrated Farm, DB, and site-level restores for SharePoint. DPM also provides one touch application restores so there’s no need to pre stage recovered data and then utilize other application-specific UI’s.

 

Support for Microsoft Exchange (E2k3 & E12), including advanced configurations such as E12 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) and Local Continuous Replication (LCR) clusters.

Support for Microsoft SQL (2k3 & 2k5), including advanced configurations such as SQL 2005 mirrored clusters. DPMv2 also supports shortened SQL backup windows without the need for costly compression solutions.

Support for Microsoft SharePoint (WSS2.0 & WSS 3.0).

Bare metal Recovery, including recovery to alternate hardware.

Update: The sharepoint support and Bare Metal recovery are not yet available int Beta1

Because we support local tape library we can have the following backup scenarios:

Disk-to-Disk – Data can be moved from the source disk to the DPM attached secondary disk using a very efficient block level replication solution.

Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape – Once data is on DPM attached secondary disk, it can be moved to DPM attached tape media where it is written using the industry standard MTF format.

Disk-to-Tape – Data can be moved directly to DPM attached tape drives.

I will cover some more in the coming weeks as I get more information and performed some tests.

 

Technorati tags: DPM V2, System Center, Backup, Exchange Backup, SQL Backup, Sharepoint Backup