A public beta of the second version of Data Protection Manager (DPM), a server-based product designed to perform frequent disk-based backup of other Windows servers, was made available in late September. Planned for release to manufacturing in the second half of 2007, the new version adds many enhancements, including the ability to backup SQL Server, Exchange, and SharePoint data stores without ever taking them off line. These features will substantially expand the scope of the product, which currently is practical mainly for file servers.

Disk-Based Backup for Fast Recovery

A DPM system consists of a Windows Server 2003 computer running the DPM software and equipped with a large amount of disk storage, plus DPM agents running on each Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 production server it protects. The agents monitor and copy changes on the production servers and periodically replicate changed data to the DPM server, which stores the data in a large disk-based repository. Tape backups for off-site storage and archiving can be made from the DPM server. If data on a production server is corrupted or lost due to user error or system failure, it can be restored more rapidly and reliably than if extracted from tape, and in many cases without the intervention of IT staff. Furthermore, DPM supports a choice of which version of a file to recover; the data restored can be anywhere from 15 minutes to a month old, depending on system configuration. (According to Microsoft's research, nearly 90% of tape-restore requests submitted to IT are for data less than 30 days old.)

The first version of the product, DPM 2006, was released in Sept. 2005 and could back up only ordinary files—it wasn't practical for backing up the system state contained in the Registry and other special OS files or to back up data in databases such as Exchange Server, SQL Server, or SharePoint Portal Server. Because of this, DPM 2006 could not be the only backup for a server if the organization wanted to be able to restore a server to its last good state; for that, traditional tape backup agents had to run on every server.

Supporting Databases, More Frequent Backups

DPM version 2 promises to correct some of these deficiencies by backing up Exchange Server, SQL Server, and SharePoint data stores while they are online. The new version will have more granular restore capabilities. For example, it can restore an individual mailbox rather than having to recover an entire Exchange Server data store.

DPM version 2 also promises other improvements, including the following:

• More frequent data synchronization (up to every 15 minutes rather than every hour) and the ability to store 512 shadow copies of the data, compared with 64 previously
• Native tape support, which allows data to be archived to tape from a DPM server without a third-party tape backup solution
• The ability to protect x64-based servers and servers configured in a cluster.

A second beta of DPM version 2 is expected in the first half of 2007, with the final production version shipping in the second half of 2007. No licensing details have been announced, but it will likely be similar to DPM 2006, which requires a Base License for each DPM server, and a Data Protection Management License (DPML) for each server it backs up. For volume customers, the licenses start at US$400 and US$150 respectively.

Resources

To download DPM version 2 beta 1, or learn more about DPM version 2, see www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dpm/default.mspx.

For more information about DPM 2006, see "Data Protection Manager Ships" on page 10 of the Nov. 2005 Update.