using dpm 2010 to backup exchange 2010 DAG

Article
05/10/2010

System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 is here, and it (amongst all other features) enables you as an Exchange administrator to backup your Exchange 2010 environment, and DPM 2010 is DAG-aware!

Let’s see…

After installing SCDPM2010, I need to deploy a DPM agent. In my current Exchange organization, I have created a DAG, called DAG1, too which two Exchange 2010 mailbox servers belong, being E2010CHM1, and E2010MU2.

When I select the option to install an agent in the DPM Administrator Console, DPM will prompt me that there is a cluster found :-)

DPM detected that you have selected servers that are nodes of a server cluster. You have not selected other nodes that belong to the same server cluster. However, if the nodes are part of a Exchange 2010 DAG you need not protect all DAG nodes.

You can protect nonclustered data in the selected nodes without installing protection agents on the other nodes.

What does this mean?

If you have a DAG configured, and if you only deploy a DPM agent on some of the DAG members, you will be able to backup any of the databases homed on those DAG members. But you will not be able to backup any database that are only homed on DAG members that haven’t got a DPM agent installed!

For example, in my deployment, I have a DAG, called DAG1, with two member servers. I have deployed a DPM agent on E2010CHM1, and not on E2010MU2. Databases are distributed as followed in my Exchange deployment:

When creating a new Protection Group, I will see the DAG, but I won’t be able to select any database which is homed only on E2010MU2. I will be able to select any database homed on E2010CHM1.

As can be seen in the print screen below, I can not see the mailbox database called BHV, since it is only homed on E2010MU2!

After selecting for example the Management database, I need to supply some more information, like a name for the protection group:

And then some specific Exchange information. DPM can run the Eseutil integrity check, thereby reducing the load on the Exchange server itself. DPM will check the integrity using Eseutil, and will inform Exchange afterwards about the status of the backup. DPM requires two files from Exchange in order to do this integrity check. You need to copy Ese.dll and Eseutil.exe from your Exchange server to the DPM bin directory, or you can install the Exchange management tools on your DPM server. I have chosen to copy the two files from my Exchange server to the DPM server.

Then there is specific question with regards to Exchange DAG Protection, you will need to assign your mailbox databases to either a Full Backup or to a Copy Backup. It is important to remember that you can only select one copy of a database for full backup, due to federated log truncation!