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Restoration of a failed Microsoft DPM 2010 server by restoring DPMDB--Issues
I am attempting to run through some disaster senarios at my company that include complete loss of a DPM 2010 server, but still having access to the DPM replica disks, as well as the DPMDB on external tape.
I have looked all over the net for the proper steps to take in restoring DPM in this manner (on a new clean install of Server 2008 R2). I found this blog post and followed the instructions to the letter.
http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/restoring-or-moving-data-protection-manager-dpm-server/
I felt this was the most complete walkthough I found through my searches, and was also able to find specific technet articles (in less clairity) explain the same steps as being the "correct" way to restore DPM server from a backed up DPMDB.
My steps were as follows:
1. with a working DPM server, backed up DPMDB to external tape
2. Verified all server DPM backups were working correctly, and are being written to local DPM replica's on the same server (different disk arrays). The Server 2008 R2 server is on it's own disk on the same server. (SQL 2008 is running on it, installed via the DPM install, basic out of the box SQL install with default settings)
3. I then killed the OS drive completely, reinstalled server 2008R2 from scratch.
4. Updated server to latest security patches, Reinstalled DPM server, and all applicable DPM roll ups to ensure it was at the same state as the original DPM server. Clean install, everything looked fine.
5. I then restored the DPMDB database from tape (by following the recatalog tape steps provided by Microsoft). This process worked fine, and I was able to restore the DPMDB locally to the server.
6. I then followed the instructions in the blog to restore the original DPMDB to this new DPM install. I ran these commands from the DPMSync directory in DPM (C:\DPMDB.mdf was the location of the restored DMPDB.mdf and DPM log file that were restored)
DpmSync –RestoreDb -DbLoc C:\DPMDB.mdf
Command showed DPM database attached successfully.
7. I then ran:
DpmSync –Sync
to sync the restored DB back to DPM. This said 'DPM syncronation complete".
8. At this point I opened the DPM console and verified I could see all my disk repicas in the Recovery Tab. I thought at this point I was home free. But this is where I ran into problems.
IN the Agents tab, there were no agents listed at all. The blog mentioned that I would need to manually uninstall and reinstall the clients (which was fine, so I did so by manually uninstalling the client from the remote PC's I was originally backing up). However, Upon trying to re-install the client's by pushing them out via DPM, the process would fail. IT would APPEAR to work, as the progress would show that the clients were indeed installing to %100 in the window, but once the process finished, the servers would "disappear" from the agent window, and I would again be left with nothing there.
9. My next attempt was to try to restore a file from the replica's locally to the new DPM server, just to test a restore. However, once I got to the point in the wizard where it ask where you want to restore to (I.E. Network location) there were no computers (Not even the local DPM server itself!!) listed there, as you must have agents installed in order to restore to computers on the network. the new DPM restore isn't even recogninzing itself as a viable restore place.
So I'm stuck with what appears to be a clean install, but no way to restore any files, and all attempts to install agents (manually or through DPM) fail. I also tried manually installing the agent on a completely different PC (not previously backed in DPM) and "attaching" the computer through the Agent window. This caused Microsoft DPM Console to completely crash.
Am I missing a step somewhere? Everything I've read online says I've followed the steps properly, but I've tried this process 3 times now, all with the same results. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
I have looked all over the net for the proper steps to take in restoring DPM in this manner (on a new clean install of Server 2008 R2). I found this blog post and followed the instructions to the letter.
http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/restoring-or-moving-data-protection-manager-dpm-server/
I felt this was the most complete walkthough I found through my searches, and was also able to find specific technet articles (in less clairity) explain the same steps as being the "correct" way to restore DPM server from a backed up DPMDB.
My steps were as follows:
1. with a working DPM server, backed up DPMDB to external tape
2. Verified all server DPM backups were working correctly, and are being written to local DPM replica's on the same server (different disk arrays). The Server 2008 R2 server is on it's own disk on the same server. (SQL 2008 is running on it, installed via the DPM install, basic out of the box SQL install with default settings)
3. I then killed the OS drive completely, reinstalled server 2008R2 from scratch.
4. Updated server to latest security patches, Reinstalled DPM server, and all applicable DPM roll ups to ensure it was at the same state as the original DPM server. Clean install, everything looked fine.
5. I then restored the DPMDB database from tape (by following the recatalog tape steps provided by Microsoft). This process worked fine, and I was able to restore the DPMDB locally to the server.
6. I then followed the instructions in the blog to restore the original DPMDB to this new DPM install. I ran these commands from the DPMSync directory in DPM (C:\DPMDB.mdf was the location of the restored DMPDB.mdf and DPM log file that were restored)
DpmSync –RestoreDb -DbLoc C:\DPMDB.mdf
Command showed DPM database attached successfully.
7. I then ran:
DpmSync –Sync
to sync the restored DB back to DPM. This said 'DPM syncronation complete".
8. At this point I opened the DPM console and verified I could see all my disk repicas in the Recovery Tab. I thought at this point I was home free. But this is where I ran into problems.
IN the Agents tab, there were no agents listed at all. The blog mentioned that I would need to manually uninstall and reinstall the clients (which was fine, so I did so by manually uninstalling the client from the remote PC's I was originally backing up). However, Upon trying to re-install the client's by pushing them out via DPM, the process would fail. IT would APPEAR to work, as the progress would show that the clients were indeed installing to %100 in the window, but once the process finished, the servers would "disappear" from the agent window, and I would again be left with nothing there.
9. My next attempt was to try to restore a file from the replica's locally to the new DPM server, just to test a restore. However, once I got to the point in the wizard where it ask where you want to restore to (I.E. Network location) there were no computers (Not even the local DPM server itself!!) listed there, as you must have agents installed in order to restore to computers on the network. the new DPM restore isn't even recogninzing itself as a viable restore place.
So I'm stuck with what appears to be a clean install, but no way to restore any files, and all attempts to install agents (manually or through DPM) fail. I also tried manually installing the agent on a completely different PC (not previously backed in DPM) and "attaching" the computer through the Agent window. This caused Microsoft DPM Console to completely crash.
Am I missing a step somewhere? Everything I've read online says I've followed the steps properly, but I've tried this process 3 times now, all with the same results. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
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