DPM Licensing
Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2007
You use a single license for each computer protected by DPM. License type correlates to the type of data being protected.
DPM has two license types: standard and enterprise. The standard license entitles you to protect volumes, shares, and folders, as well as computer system state. The enterprise license entitles you to protect application data, such as mailboxes and databases on an Exchange Server, in addition to files. On a server cluster, DPM installs an agent on each node of the cluster. A license is used for each server node.
The following table lists the license applied for each data type.
DPM Licenses Used for Data Types
| Type of protected data | License used |
|---|---|
Files only. |
Standard |
Files on a single node of a server cluster. |
Standard |
System state. |
Enterprise |
SQL Server. (A DPM protection agent on a computer running SQL Server entitles you to protect databases for all SQL instances on that computer.) |
Enterprise |
Exchange Server. |
Enterprise |
Windows SharePoint Services. (On a Windows SharePoint Services farm, a license is used for each back-end server and one license is used for the front-end Web server.) |
Enterprise |
Virtual Server. (On a computer running Virtual Server, a single protection agent installed on the computer enables you to protect any number of virtual machines, or guests, on the host computer. To protect specific application data within a virtual machine, such as to protect the databases for an instance of SQL Server running on a virtual machine, you must install a protection agent directly to the virtual machine. When you protect data on a virtual machine that has a protection agent installed, the appropriate license is used for the type of data being protected.) |
Enterprise |
Another DPM server. |
Enterprise |
Data for bare metal recovery using DPM System Recovery Tool. |
Enterprise |
You do not use a license when you install a protection agent on a computer. The license is applied only when data on a computer is added to a protection group. When you are no longer protecting any data on a specific computer, you can reuse that license on another computer.
When the type of data being protected changes, DPM automatically updates the license usage. For example, you are protecting an Exchange storage group and files on a single server, so you have used an enterprise license to protect that server. Later, you stop protection of the Exchange storage group. Because DPM is now protecting file data only on that server, your license use will change to a standard license.
In a situation where you have only enterprise licenses available and you need to protect file data on a new computer, an enterprise license can be used. For example, you have three standard licenses and three enterprise licenses. You are protecting file data on three computers. You add file data from a fourth computer to a protection group. Because all standard licenses have been used already, DPM will apply an enterprise license.
During DPM installation, you enter the number of licenses that you have purchased. After installation, to update the license information, in the Protection task area of DPM Administrator Console, in the Actions pane, click View DPM licenses, and then change the number of purchased licenses as appropriate.
You can purchase additional DPM licenses through the Microsoft Partner program (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71663).