Deploying Data Protection Manager 2007 (Part 4)

Using the Recover section of the DPM 2007 Administrator Console

Using the DPM 2007 Administrator Console we can recover all sorts of protected data from a single point of view. To start any recovery process we just need to click on the Recovery item. We have two tabs: Browse and Search, the first tab allows us to list all protected servers and their data that has been protected by DPM server.

We can expand Data on Disks and Tapes, domain name, server name and we will be able to see all components that have been protected by DPM. In this article series we are protecting two shared folders, and these folders can be accessed either by driver letter (in our case C:\) or All Protected Shares. Let's click on C:\ and on the right hand side we have a calendar which shows, in bold, all dates that have at least one recovery point of the selected item, beside this calendar we have all the available recovery points for that day, and we also have an icon indicating where the protected data is located (source or disk).

Figure 01

If you have a large environment with several protected servers you can filter by server name. To do that, just fill in the server name under the Server field and click on the Filter button. Then only the server will be listed in the right hand side of the recovery section.

Figure 01 shows all the shares, but we might want to recover a single file that is under those folders, to do that just double click on the directory folder and we will see all the files and subfolders of that specific share.

Now, let's click on the second tab called Search (Figure 02). In this tab we can search the protected data with queries using some variables. First of all we have three different types of data to search, they are: Files and folders, Mailboxes and Sharepoint. Each option has its own parameters to facilitate the search of the respective data.

Let's create a file to find all the .txt files (Folder or file name section) during a certain range of time, (Recovery point range section) which might be in the server and path drive specified in the Original location (required) section. After creating a query to match our needs, we just need to click on the Search button. On the right hand side we will have all the occurrences found and we have some useful information such as: file name, path, last modified, size, Recovery Point date and finally where the information is located (disk or tape).

Figure 02

Before starting our recovery process, let's go back to the Browse tab to validate the Show all recovery points feature. We can use that feature to list all available recovery points associated with the selected data in a single screen (Figure 03), instead of having to change the days in the calendar to validate if the item is there. In our example we are looking at all available recovery points for the share02 folder. We can see that we have only two recovery points available to recover that data from and all information is located on a Disk.

Figure 03

Recovering data using DPM 2007

Now that we have just seen an overview of the recovery section, let's select a file to be recovered and let's click on the Recover… item in Toolbox Actions. Follow these steps to finish the recovery process:

1. Review Recovery Selection. After selecting the data and clicking on Recover… the first screen of the Recovery Wizard will contain the details of the data that will be recovered (Figure 04). Let's just click on Next.

Figure 04

2. Select Recovery Type. We can choose the original location, an alternate location or Copy to tape (where the entire volume where the data resides will be copied to tape). Let's select Recover to the original location and click on Next. (Figure 05)

Figure 05

3. Specify Recover Options. We can play with some options (Figure 06), if the data to be restored already exists in the original location (chose in the previous step) we can create a copy, skip or overwrite. Let's create a copy, we can also play with the security permissions where we can choose to apply the original permissions (Apply the security settings of the recovery point version) or use the current source permission (Apply security settings of the destination computer).
   
   If the DPM has the SMTP server defined we can tick the option Send an e-mail when this recovery and fill out the user name that should be notified when the recovery data is available.
   To continue our process, just click on Next.

Figure 06

4. Summary. Just an overview of all our choices up to now, click on Next.
5. Recovery Status. Final screen will appear displaying the operation result (Figure 07), how much time was spent in the operation and how much data was transferred from DPM server to the server.

Figure 07

Now that we have seen how to recover an item using DPM 2007 we can use the same process to recover a mailbox, SQL Database, Virtual Server, etc…

Controlling network bandwidth

We can control the network bandwidth used by a DPM server.

1. Open DPM Administrator Console.
2. In the Navigation Bar click on Management.
3. In the Display Pane click on the designated server that you want to throttle.
4. In the Action Pane click on Throttle computer…
   
   In the Work Schedule section we can configure the days of the week and the start and end time, everything outside of this is non-work hours. After configuring our work hours properly we can assign throttling in both cases, we can use kbps and Mbps. By default, when the Throttle feature is enabled the default value will be 128 Kbps for Work hours and 9999 Mbps for non-work hours (unlimited), as shown in Figure 08.

Figure 08

But before using this feature shown above we must make sure that the QoS component is installed and enabled on DPM Server and on the agents as well.

1. Enter the properties of the network connection that DPM will use to protect the designated server.
2. By default the QoS Packet Scheduler is not installed. Click on Install.
3. In the Select Network component Type, click on Service and click Add.
4. Click on QoS Packet Scheduler and click OK.
5. In the Local Connection Properties, make sure that the QoS Packet Scheduler is checked, as shown in Figure 09.

Figure 09

Repeat this process in all the agents that will use the throttle feature and in the DPM server as well.

Deploying Data Protection Manager 2007 (Part 3)

What does DPM protect?

DPM protects several Microsoft products. Table 01 lists the products that can be protected and which items within the products that can be restored.

Microsoft Products	Item(s) that can be protected	Recoverable Items
Exchange Server 2003 with SP2 Exchange Server 2007	Storage group	Storage group, Database, or Mailbox
SQL Server 2000 with SP4 SQL Server 2005 with SP1 or higher	Database	Database
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	Farm	Farm, Database, Site, File or list
Windows Server 2003 Windows Storage Server 2003	Volume, Share and Folders	Volume, share, Folder or File
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1	Virtual Server host or Virtual Server machines	Virtual Server host or Virtual Server machines
Protected servers running Windows 2003 and XP	System state	System state
Windows XP with SP2 Windows Vista	File data	File data

Table 01

DPM also protects a cluster environment of those applications (File Server, Exchange and SQL). To restore entire machines DPM has an additional tool called DPM System Recovery Tool that allows a bare metal recovery of the protected servers; this tool does not come with the DPM 2007 DVD but can be found on a separate disk.

Creating a Protection Group

All DPM Protection is based in the Protection Group; the protection group defines retention range, how often synchronization will occur, how many recovery points will be available, where the protection will be kept, etc. Understanding how to create a Protection Group and its options is crucial in order to protect a network using DPM.

When creating a Protection Group we do not have to know where the application's files are located in the file system. If we select an SQL or Exchange database, DPM will gather information from the product and it will automatically find where the files are. In order to create a Protection Group to protect two shared folders follow these steps:

1. Open the Data Protection Manager 2007 Console.
2. Click on the Protection task area.
3. In Toolbox Actions, click on Create Protection Group:
4. Welcome to the New Protection Group Wizard page; there is an introductory text about the process that will be used by DPM to protect the selected computers, click on Next.
5. In the Select Group Member page, we can see all the servers that have been installed with the DPM Agent. We can choose several items at the same time. In the Figure below we are able to protect some items such as Exchange Server Cluster, Shares, Volumes, System State and SQL as well. DPM is application aware, this means that we do not need to specify the path of Exchange and SQL database and log files, just select the component (SQL databases or Exchange Databases).
   
   In this tutorial we are going to check two shares (Share01 and Share02) and they will show up in the Select members area (Figure 01).

   
   Figure 01: Selecting some items among the servers with the DPM Agent installed

   We still have two options in the Selected members frame that are: Excluded Folders and Excluded file types.

   Excluded File types: We can exclude file extensions, which will then not be protected. To do that we just need to click on the Exclude Files: link and type in the extensions required, as shown in Figure 02.

   
   Figure 02: Excluding the extensions .mp3 and .tmp files to be protected

   Exclude Folders: When a directory with several subdirectories is selected, we can unselect the subdirectories that do not need to be protected. This option will show all subdirectories that are unchecked. In the example below the Inetpub folder was selected and the subdirectory AdminScripts was unchecked. (Figure 03)

   
   Figure 03: All directories that are not protected

6. In the Select Data Protection Method page we can define the Protection Group name and we can define which method we are going to use in this protection group: Disk (short-term protection), Tape (long-term protection) or both. Only the available options will be displayed, in our article a tape library is not installed, so the Tape protection option is disabled. (Figure 04)

   
   Figure 04: Defining the Protection Group name and the method that will be utilized

7. In the Specify Short-Term Goals page, we will define the Disk Based protection plan for the data and servers already selected. The options that we can define are how many days of retention, synchronization frequency and how often a recovery point will be created. At this point it is important to understand what the Synchronization Process and Recovery Point are for.
   
   Synchronization process
   
   DPM maintains a replica of the synchronized protected server data. All the information is stored in the DPM Storage Pool or in a custom volume. The synchronization process depends on the data that we are working with, as follows:
   • File data: the DPM agent uses a volume filter and the Operating system change journal to track which files have been changed, created or deleted since the last synchronization job.
   • Application data: the DPM Agent uses the VSS Application writer to identify which disk blocks have changed. Those changes will be applied to the DPM replica. If the application supports incremental backups a recovery point will be created for each synchronization (Exchange and SQL).

   To summarize, all changes made in the Protected Servers will be transferred to DPM Server in order to keep the replica updated on a regular basis.
   
   Recovery points
   
   A recovery point is a point-in-time version of the data protected by the DPM Server. We use recovery points to recover data. For file servers the recovery points allow the Administrator and users to recover data, for applications (such as Exchange and SQL) we are able to restore the data from recovery points and synchronize as well.
   
   In Figure 05 we can see how often a file recovery will occur, the retention range for the data and how often the data will be synchronized.

   
   Figure 05: Specifying short-term goals

   By clicking on the Modify button, we can define at which time and days we will be creating recovery points. We have to plan the number of recovery points carefully. If we have a higher number of recovery points per day it will decrease the retention range because we cannot have more than 64 recovery points for file data. PS: This 64 limit is not applied for applications. We have to run a recovery point at least once a week.

8. Review Disk Allocation page. We can define space for Replica and Recovery Volumes, a graphical view of the current status of the Storage Pool will be shown (Figure 06). We can click on the Modify button to change the volume sizes; DPM uses the current volume information of the protected server to calculate the proper size.
   Important: We cannot shrink the size of a Disk Poll after definition; we must recreate the Protection Group, on other hand we can increase the current size without playing with the Protection Group.

   
   Figure 06: Defining the disk space allocation for the new Protection Group

   Nowadays, there is a storage calculator for Exchange (Data Protection Manager 2007 Storage Calculator) but in the future a spreadsheet wil be available for the another products (SQL, SharePoint, Virtual Server, etc).

9. In the Choose Replica Creation Method page we can define how and when the initial replica of the selected data will be created. The initial replica can be done manually, immediately or at a scheduled time. (Figure 07)

   
   Figure 07: Defining when the initial replica will be executed

10. Summary page. A list with all the defined settings will be shown in this page. The information should fit with the company requirements. In Figure 08 we can easily see that the protected shared folders will be kept for 5 days, data synchronization will occur every 30 minutes, and we will be able to recover the data 3 times in a day. To create the Protection Group with the defined settings click on Create Group.

    
    Figure 08: Summary of the information that will be used to create the Protection Group

11. Status page. A final page showing the tasks performed to create the Protection Group will appear, just click on Close.

Now, we can open the Disk Administrator and we will see two new volumes in the DPM Storage Pool disks, those disks will be responsible for keeping the data of those shared folders in the Protection Group.

Examining the Protection task area

After creating the Protection Group we can view information about the selected Protection Group in the Details Pane. We can also tinker with the Protection Group through the Actions Toolbox where we can modify the disk allocation, perform consistent checks and create recovery points, as shown in Figure 09.

Figure 09: Additional information and the current status of the Protection Group

Deploying Data Protection Manager 2007 (Part 2)

Continuing our DPM 2007 deployment…

We have just deployed the DPM Server and before we start getting to know the DPM Administration interfaces we have to configure three key points:

• Understand where and how DPM can use media to protect the data (disk, tape or both)
• Add Disks to the Storage Pool
• Add Agents to protect servers

After these three topics above we will be taking a look at each of the key areas of DPM 2007.

Storing the backup data in disks, tapes or both…

One of the nice features of DPM 2007 is the possibility of storing the protected data in different ways, such as disk-based storage (also know as D2D Disk-to-disk), tape-based storage (also know as D2T Disk-to-tape) and both methods (also know as D2D2T, disk-to-disk-to-tape), as shown in Figure 01.

Figure 01: The three methods to store the information (Disk, Tape or both)

This flexibility is set up at Protection Group level. Using these methods we can configure short-term periods of data to be stored on a disk because a restore from a disk is much faster and easier than a tape restore. We can also define long-term periods of data to be moved to a tape. All these options are defined when creating the Protection Groups to protect the servers.

Adding disks to the storage pool

DPM uses a set of disks called the Storage Pool where it stores replicas and recovery points of the protected data. We need at least one disk in the Storage Pool to start the process of protecting the servers.

If we have a basic disk DPM will convert it to a dynamic disk in order to add it to the Storage Pool. In DPM Beta2 we can add any physical disk and it will use only the unallocated space of the selected disk. We are going to add the disk shown in Figure 02 to the DPM Storage Pool.

Figure 02: The disk that will be added to the Storage Pool

To add disk1 into the Storage Pool follow these steps:

1. Open the Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager.
2. In the Navigation bar click on the Management area.
3. In the Display Pane, click on Disk tab.
4. In the Actions pane, click on Add..
5. Add Disks to Storage Pool. In the left frame all available disks that may be used by DPM will appear. Click on the disk and click on the Add -> button (Figure 03). The disk will be moved to the right frame and we can see the disk name, capacity and if there is any data on the disk. Click on OK.

Figure 03: Selecting a disk to be added to the Storage Pool

6. Now we can see the disk that has just been added to the Storage Pool (Figure 04). We can also see the disk status, how much is allocated for protection, how much space is still unallocated and which Protected volumes are on this specific disk.

Figure 04: Disk Management with a recently initialized disk that will be added to DPM Disk Storage Pool

Deploying the DPM Agents

Let's install the agents on the DPM Protected Servers. Agent installation can be done manually or through the DPM Administrator Console. The agent will be installed as a service called DRMA on the Protected Servers.

1. Open the Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager.
2. In the Navigation bar Click on the Management area.
3. In the Display Pane, click on the Agents tab.
4. In the Actions pane, click on Install…
5. Select one or more servers on which to install the agent, as shown in Figure 05, and then click Next.

Figure 05: Selecting the Servers on which the DPM Agent will be installed

6. Enter Credentials. Specify a user name, password and domain as well with Installation rights on the server that DPM Agent will be installed, and click Next.
7. Choose Restart Method. Install the Agent and automatically restart the server or install the agent and restart the server manually. Click Next.
8. Summary. Validate which server or servers will receive the Agent, and click on Install.
9. Now click on Close, the status of the installation will be shown, as in Figure 06.

Figure 06: The newly installed agent - validate the agent's version, status, and to which group it belongs

Using the DPM 2007 Administrator Console

We can work with DPM through the Administrator Console or through the DPM Management Shell that allows the use of PowerShell.

The DPM Administrator Console has five distinct areas that can be managed. These areas are: Monitoring, Protection, Recovery, Reporting and Management. We will go over each of these areas to see what we can do in each.

DPM 2007 Administrator Console

Monitoring

This area allows us to monitor the status of DPM Operations, and is divided in two distinct tabs: Alerts and Jobs.

Alerts: This tab displays messages about agents, backup and restore procedures. We can group these alerts using the Group by combo box (Figure 07).

Jobs: Show the status of jobs and the tasks associated with them. We can also group the jobs using the Group by combo box and Filter names. The jobs listed in this area are set up automatically during the Protection Group creation process (Figure 08).

Figure 07: The Active and Inactive DPM alerts

Figure 08: Jobs

Protection

In this area we can manage the Protection Groups, Protection Schedules, disk allocations, etc. We can also synchronize and create a Recovery Point. We can see all the servers in the Protection Groups. We can click on a specific item and validate some points, such as: how many recovery points are available, the oldest and latest recovery point and figure out how much disk space is being used to protect the specific item, as shown in Figure 09.

Figure 09: Protection Groups

Recovery

In the Recovery Area we can recover data that has been protected by the Protection Groups. We can see all the servers and protected items in a single view, and we do not need to move from the screen to do an Exchange, SharePoint, SQL or a Windows File Server restore procedure. We can use the calendar to see the days and specific times that we have a recovery point available. We can also see which media has the selected recovery point (disk or tape), as shown in Figure 10.

We can use the Search Tab to find available recovery points using variables, such as: file or folder name, recovery point range and the original location

Figure 10: The Recovery area that allows us to recover data from the DPM Agents

Reporting

The Reporting Service has some reports that allow administrators to measure some items, such as: statistics, performance that might help with hardware resource capacity planning. We have the following built in reports and they can be seen in Figure 11.

• Disk Utilization
• Protection
• Recovery
• Status
• Tape Management
• Tape Utilization

Figure 11: The available DPM reports

We can also configure the reports to be generated on a regular basis and sent to a selected e-mail address. Click on the Report, and on the Details Pane, we have two options: Schedule and E-mail, both of them have an Edit links below.

In the Schedule (Figure 12), we can configure the frequency and report parameters. We can also define how many version we will keep in the history.

Figure 12: Defining a schedule to generate the Disk Utilization Report

In the E-Mail tab, we can define who will receive the scheduled report. To add more than one mailbox just add a semi-colon between the e-mail address (Figure 13). We can also configure the format of the attached file that will come with the message, such as HTML, Excel or PDF.

Figure 13: Specifying the recipients that will receive this report

We can right-click on a report and click view to see it. A sample report can be seen in Figure 14.

Figure 14: Report extracted based on DPM Activity - schedule report generation or see it in real time

Management

In the Management Area we can play with the DPM Server components which interact with the servers and store the data. These items are: Agents, Disks and Tape library

Management of disks and agents has already been done in order to prepare DPM to be used.

In order to use a tape library properly in DPM 2007 we must make sure that the device is configured in the Device Management section. There is list with all hardware tested with DPM Beta2: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dpm/partners/tapelib.mspx

DPM Management Shell

DPM 2007 can be managed through Windows PowerShell using the DPM Management Shell. In the DPM Management Shell some tasks that are not possible through DPM Administrator Console can be accomplished. Scripts can also be created to facilitate daily tasks. To see a list of all available DPM cmdlets use: get-DPMCommand.

Figure 15: Starting the DPM Management Shell

Deploying Data Protection Manager 2007 (Part 1)

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) was designed to protect Microsoft applications and Microsoft Servers in an Active Directory environment. DPM uses continuous data protection. The DPM Server protects the servers, creating and maintaining a replica of the information stored therein. We can define an interval period in which to synchronize the data from the protected servers to DPM Server. DPM captures only the data changes since the last operation and then moves the changed data to DPM Server in order to synchronize the replica. The process used to replicate data from protected servers to DPM Server will be explained in detail in the last article of this series.

DPM also uses Disks to protect data in the short-term period, which increases backup speed and restores information when necessary, and it can be combined with tape libraries. DPM integrates with Active Directory and allows end users to recover their own file server data from DPM easily through the Previous Version tab in a protected folder.

We can get an idea of how DPM protects Microsoft Applications and Servers by taking a look at Figure 01. Synchronization takes place on a regular basis and the protected information will be stored on a disk for a configured amount of days and archived later in a tape. The data synchronization and storage process will be covered in future articles.

Figure 01: Overview of a DPM solution using disks and/or tapes (courtesy Microsoft)

The current DPM version allows us to protect the following Microsoft products:

• Windows XP SP2 and all editions of Windows Vista that can belong to a domain
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Storage Groups
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 SP4, SQL Server 2005 SP1 databases
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 farms
• System State of the protected servers
• Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 host and guest configurations
• File data, such as volumes, folders and shares on file servers and workstations

To deploy DPM 2007 we must consider the following points before starting the installation process:

• DPM must not be a Domain Controller
• DPM should be run on a dedicated server
• DPM and the Protected Server should be in the same domain, or a two way trust must exist
• At least 1GB of RAM in the DPM Server
• DPM must be installed on a Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2003 R2 with SP2, Windows Storage Server with SP2, Windows Storage Server R2 with SP2 or Windows 2008
• The domain controllers must be running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2
• DPM can protect either 32bit or x64 Operating Systems

Installing Data Protection Manager 2007

DPM 2007 can be downloaded at http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dpm. After the extraction of the package content we can run Setup.exe that can be found in the root directory at the extracted location.

The DPM 2007 setup process installs by default all the prerequisite software to support DPM Server installation. In the current version of DPM 2007 (beta 2) the following software will be installed during DPM Setup:

• Windows Server 2003 OS features
  - ASP.Net
  - Network COM+ Access
  - Internet Information Service (IIS) 6.0
  - Windows Deployment Services (WDS) on Windows 2003 Servers running SP2 or Single Instance Storage (SIS) on Windows Server Storage Server 2003 R2
• Windows PowerShell
• Microsoft .Net Framework
• Evaluation of SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition
• SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2
• SQL Server 2005 Tools and workstation components

Note:
In this article we are going to install DPM using the default values (all the prerequisites and components will be installed as part of the DPM Setup. However we will be using an SQL Server on another server to provide the database and reporting services components required by DPM.

To install DPM 2007 Beta2 follow these steps:

1. Initial screen. Click on Install Data Protection Manager, as shown in Figure 02. Now, some prerequisites will be installed automatically on the system (Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0)

Figure 02: Initial installation screen

2. License. Check the option I accept the license terms and condition and click on OK to continue.
3. Welcome. Initial wizard screen to install DPM, just click on Next.
4. Prerequisites Check. The DPM Setup will analyze the server in three different ways: basic components; required hardware and system attributes. We can receive two kinds of error messages during the check procedure: Warning which allows the setup to continue however one should fix anything displayed on the message as soon as possible; Error which indicates that a required component is missing or noncompliant. In this case we have to fix it before continuing with the Setup process. In our article the prerequisite check was executed and a single Warning message was displayed, as shown in Figure 03.

Tip:
Windows PowerShell is not installed during the DPM Installation Process and we need to install it manually. To do that we can download and install it from the PowerShell Download Page.

Figure 03: Prerequisite Check process allows us to validate all prerequisites

5. Product Registration. Fill in the User Name and Company information and click on Next.
6. Installation Settings. In this section we can define where the DPM will be installed and choose between installing and using a local SQL Server 2005 (DPM Setup will deploy this SQL version) or using a remote SQL Server 2005. In our article we will be installing and using the SQL Server 2005 that will be deployed by DPM Setup, as shown in Figure 04.

Note:
If a remote SQL Server 2005 was chosen, DPM will use the Reporting Services on that server. If that server does not have Reporting Services we must install it on that server before continuing the DPM Server installation process.

Figure 04: Choosing the SQL Server that will be utilized by DPM

7. Security Settings. We must define a password that will be utilized by local accounts used by SQL Services. Click on Next.
8. Customer Experience Improvement Program. Just click on Next.
9. Summary of Settings. A summary will be shown with all options that have been defined. To confirm click on Install.
10. Installation. This process will take some time because setup is installing all the required software components to deploy DPM 2007 properly. At the end we will see a summary of all options installed on the DPM Server. (Figure 05)

Note:
To install the required Windows components the DPM setup will request the required Windows Server 2003 media, unless the components have been installed beforehand.

Figure 05: DPM 2007 was properly installed

11. Restart the DPM Server to finish the installation.

Just to make sure everything is fine, we can check the installation log files to validate. The default location is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DPMLogs, as shown in Figure 06.

Figure 06: The DPM Setup process creates log files that can be used to validate the installed components

Managing Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007

Configuring End-User Recovery

End-user recovery allows the end-user to use the Previous Version tab of a shared folder or file to recover the data from a protected computer without the Administrator intervention.  In order to allow users to recovery their data through Previous Versions, we have to extend the Active Directory Schema, after that we can enable it and install the Shadow Copy client on the workstations.

First of all let's prepare our Active Directory Schema to support the end-user recovery feature.

1. Open the DPM Administrator Console.
2. In the Actions Pane click on Options.
3. Click the End-user Recovery tab.
4. If your Active Directory has not been extended yet, the option "Enable end-user recovery" will be disabled. To extend the Active Directory schema click the Configure Active Directory button, as shown in Figure 01.

Figure 01: Configuring Active Directory to support the end-user recovery feature

5. In the Configure Active Directory screen, if you have permission, click Use current credentials or type in a user that belongs to Schema Admins and Domain Admins groups. After that click OK.
6. A message box will appear with the following question: This package will configure your Active Directory to support end-user recovery for Data Protection Manager. Do you want to continue? Click Yes.
7. Another message box informing you that the Active Directory process update will take a few minutes will appear. Just click OK.
8. We will receive a message box that the upgrade was configured successfully, as shown in Figure 02.

Figure 02: The Active Directory has been prepared and we can start using end-user recovery

Now, we are able to check the option "Enable end-user recovery" that will allow end-users to recover their data. (Figure 03)

Figure 03: Enabling the end-user recovery feature

The next step must be done client side; we have to install a Shadow Copy client version that supports DPM 2007, if you already have the Shadow Copy installed make sure that it supports DPM 2007. Shadow Copy client runs on Windows 2000 SP3 or later and Windows XP Professional. The shadow copy client can be found on TechNet. We can use SMS or another distribution software method in order to make it available to all workstations or it can be done manually.

Before starting to use the Previous Version tab, we must make sure of the following:

• There is no Shadow Copy enabled on the Shared Folders of the protected computer. If a computer has Shadow Copy this information will be shown to the client in the Previous Version tab not the DPM protected data.
• Wait for a synchronization before starting to use the Previous Version on the client.

Finally, we can validate that the feature works, using a client with Shadow Copy supported by DPM 2007. Right-click on a Shared Folder, and click Properties, and then click the Previous Version tab (Figure 04). The result will be all the Recovery Points available for this shared folder. You can also use the options: view, copy and restore.

Figure 04: The Previous Versions available of a shared folder located in a protected computer

We can also work at file level; in Figure 05 we can see that a specific file has two older versions that can be restored easily by the client.

Figure 05: The previous versions available for a specific file

Configuring Auto Discover

The Auto Discovery tab allows us to choose the time of day DPM runs the Auto discover service and add the new servers on the Agent installation list. By default Auto Discovery runs at 01:00AM, as shown in Figure 06.

Figure 06: DPM Auto Discovery settings

When Auto Discovery is on you can validate new servers by clicking Install Agents (Figure 07). All new servers and current servers without the agent installed will be added to that list.

Figure 07: The computers that are able to receive an Agent installation

Configuring the SMTP Server

DPM uses an SMTP server to send reports and notifications. We can configure the SMTP Server as follows:

1. Open the DPM Administrator Console.
2. In the Actions Pane, click on Options.
3. Click on the SMTP Server tab (Figure 08).
   We have to add our Exchange Server name or IP address, port (Default port is 25) and the e-mail address that all messages from DPM will have in the From: field.
   If we are going to send messages from DPM to internal users only and if we are running Exchange Server 2003, authentication might not be necessary. However, if we are using Exchange Server 2007 authentication is necessary.
   Note: If you are running Exchange Server 2007 with distributed server roles, fill the SMTP Server Name field with the server that includes the Hub Transport role.

Figure 08: Configuring the SMTP Server settings

4. A test can be done clicking on Send Test E-mail...
5. A message box asking about an SMTP address will appear. Type in an internal valid SMTP Address and click on Send. If there is a credential error you will receive a message in the SMTP address specified previously.
6. The result expected is a message with the SMTP address specified in the last step, as shown in Figure 09. This message will have a brief explanation about the test that was carried out.

Figure 09: The test message sent by DPM Server

Now we can configure reports and Alert notifications to be sent by SMTP.

Configuring DPM to support MOM

DPM can be monitored in three different ways:

• Using the DPM Administrator Console we can monitor Job and Alert status.
• Using the Alert Notification Option to send information to a specific SMTP address.
• Using Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 or System Center Operations  Manager  to monitor the DPM server.

We can monitor DPM using the Notifications tab which allows us to receive specified types of messages in one or multiple mailboxes defined by the DPM Administrator. To configure the Notifications option, we must make sure that SMTP Server is configured properly. If it is, we can continue:

1. Open the DPM Administrator Console.
2. In the Actions Panel, click Options.
3. Click the Notifications tab (Figure 10).
4. We can select which alert types we want to receive. You can send notifications for Critical, Warning and Informational alerts. We have to define the e-mail address that will receive the notifications.

Figure 10: Configuring and testing the Notifications option

5. To test the notifications click Send Test Notification.
6. The expected result will be a test message, as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11: Receiving a test message from the Notifications option

If there is either MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager) or SCOM (System Center Operations Manager) installed we can download the Management Pack for DPM 2007 and install it on MOM. The next process would be installing a MOM agent on the DPM Server.

Even with the DPM Management Pack and the agent installed on the DPM Server, we must publish the DPM Alerts in the Event Viewer (Figure 12) to enable MOM to monitor the DPM Server. To enable it, click the Alert Publishing tab and click Publish Active Alerts.

Figure 12: Configuring DPM to be monitored by MOM or SCOM