Protected Computer Software Prerequisites

  • Article

Applies To: Data Protection Manager, System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

Each computer that System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) protects must meet the requirements listed in the following table. Protected volumes must be formatted as NTFS file system. DPM cannot protect volumes formatted as FAT or FAT32. Also, the volume must be at least 1 gigabyte (GB) for DPM to protect it. DPM uses the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to create a snapshot of the protected data, and VSS will create a snapshot only if the volume size is greater than or equal to 1 GB.

Before you install protection agents on the computers you are going to protect, you must apply hotfix 940349. You must install the hotfix on your 64-bit and 32-bit servers. If you are installing a protection agent on Windows Vista, the 940349 hotfix is not required.

For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 940349, Availability of a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) update rollup package for Windows Server 2003 to resolve some VSS snapshot issues (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=139733).

Note

After installing Knowledge Base article 940349 and then restarting the DPM server and/or the protected server, we recommend that you refresh the protection agents in DPM Administration Console. To refresh the agents, in the Management task area, click the Agents tab, select the computer, and then in the Actions pane, click Refresh information. If you do not refresh the protection agents, Error ID: 31008 may appear because DPM only refreshes the protection agents every 30 minutes.

Protected Computer Requirements

Protected Computers Computer Requirements

File servers

You can protect file servers on any of the following operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later (Standard and Enterprise Editions).

  • Windows Advanced Server 2003 with SP1 or later.

  • Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard and Enterprise Editions).

  • Windows Storage Server 2003 with SP1 or later (Standard, Enterprise and Express Editions).

    Note

    To obtain SP1 for Windows Storage Server 2003, contact your original equipment manufacturer.

  • Windows Storage Server 2008.

  • Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Standard and Premium Editions).

  • Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 (Standard and Premium Editions).

  • Windows Server 2008 (Core, Standard, Enterprise, and Data Center Editions).

Computers running SQL Server
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Service Pack 4 (SP4)

    - OR -

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), SP2, or SP3

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Note

DPM supports Standard, Enterprise, Workgroup, and Express editions of SQL Server. If you are protecting SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 operating system, you must install SQL Server 2005 SP2. For more information about running editions of SQL Server on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista, see Running SQL Server on “Microsoft Windows Server Longhorn” or Microsoft Windows Vista (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=142344).

Important

You must start the SQL Server VSS Writer Service on computers running SQL Server 2005 SP1 before you can start protecting SQL Server data. The SQL Server VSS Writer Service is turned on by default on computers running SQL Server 2005. To start the SQL Server VSS Writer service, in the Services console, right-click SQL Server VSS writer, and then click Start.

Computers running Exchange Server

Note

DPM supports Standard and Enterprise Editions of Exchange Server installed on Windows Server 2003 and later versions.

Important

The eseutil.exe and ese.dll versions that are installed on the most recent edition of Exchange Server must be the same versions that are installed on the DPM server.

In addition, you must update eseutil.exe and ese.dll on the DPM server if they are updated on a computer running Exchange Server after applying an upgrade or an update.

For more information about updating eseutil.exe and ese.dll, see Eseutil.exe and Ese.dll.

Computers running Virtual Server
  • Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

Note

To protect virtual machines for online backups, we recommend that you install version 13.715 of Virtual Machine Additions (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84271).

Windows SharePoint Services
  • Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Before you can protect Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) data, you must do the following:

Shared disk clusters
  • File servers

  • SQL Server 2000 with SP4

  • SQL Server 2005 with SP1

  • Exchange Server 2003 with SP2

  • Exchange Server 2007

Non-shared disk clusters
  • Exchange Server 2007

Workstations
  • Windows XP Professional SP2

  • All Windows Vista editions except Home (must be a member of a domain)

    Note

    DPM requires that the workstations and laptops that it protects be Active Directory members. Therefore, they must remain connected to the corporate local area network (LAN) at all times using reliable and consistent networks.

Virtual Hosts (Windows Server 2008 64bit Hyper-V)

For protecting Hyper-V virtual machines with DPM 2007 SP1, see Prerequisites and Known Issues with Hyper-V Protection (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=147354).

Eseutil.exe and Ese.dll

The architecture version of eseutil.exe and ese.dll must match the DPM server architecture. That means, if you are using the 64-bit version of DPM, you must have the 64-bit version of eseutil.exe and ese.dll.

If you are running a 32-bit edition of Exchange Server 2003, you must download Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 32-bit management tools (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=112325). The management tools are supported by all update methods such as Microsoft Update and Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS).

To maintain up-to-date copies of eseutil.exe and ese.dll

  1. Install the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 management tools on the DPM server. When you install the management tools, ensure that you install the management tools for the latest version of Microsoft Exchange that you are protecting. For example, if one of your mail servers is running Microsoft Exchange 2007 and another mail server is running Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1, you must install the management tools for Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1.

  2. At the command prompt, in the <DPM installation folder>\Bin directory, use the following syntax with the fsutil command to create a hard link for eseutil.exe:
    fsutil hardlink create <link> <target>
    On a typical installation, the command would look like the following:
    fsutil hardlink create “c:\program files\microsoft\dpm\bin\eseutil.exe” “c:\program files\microsoft\Exchange\bin\eseutil.exe”

See Also

Concepts

Hardware Requirements
Network Requirements
Security Requirements
Software Requirements