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System requirements for System Center 2012 - DPM

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 - Data Protection Manager

This topic summarizes system requirements for System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM) in System Center 2012.

DPM server hardware requirements

The following table lists the hardware requirements for the DPM server.

Component Minimum requirement Recommended requirement
Processor 1 GHz, dual-core CPU or faster 2.33 GHz quad-core CPU
RAM 4 GB 8 GB
Pagefile 1.5 times the amount of RAM on the computer. 0.2 percent of the combined size of all recovery point volumes, in addition to the minimum requirement size (1.5 times the amount of RAM on the computer).
Disk space for DPM installation - DPM installation location: 3 GB
- Database files drive: 900 MB
- System drive: 1 GB Note: The system drive disk space requirement is necessary if you choose to install the dedicated instance of SQL Server from DPM Setup. If you use a remote instance of SQL Server, this disk space requirement is considerably less.		 Note:  DPM requires a minimum of 300 MB of free space on each protected volume for the change journal. Additionally, before archiving data to tape, DPM copies the file catalog to a DPM temporary installation location; therefore, we recommend that the volume on which DPM is installed contains 2–3 GB of free space.
Disk space for storage pool Note: The storage pool does not support Universal Serial Bus (USB)/1394 disks. 1.5 times the size of the protected data 2.5–3 times the size of the protected data
Logical unit number (LUN) N/A - Maximum of 17 TB for GUID partition table (GPT) dynamic disks
- 2 TB for master boot record (MBR) disks Note: These requirements are based on the maximum size of the disk as it appears to the Windows Server operating system.

 DPM server operating system requirements

Supported operating systems

Supported operating system Details Required updates
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Standard and Enterprise editions 64-bit only. 32-bit or Itanium architecture–based operating systems are not supported.
Windows Server 2008 R2, Standard and Enterprise editions 64-bit only. 32-bit or Itanium architecture–based operating systems are not supported. Before you install DPM on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2, you must install the following updates and hotfixes:

- KB983633
- KB2223201 Important: If you are upgrading to Windows Server 2008 R2, you must remove any pre-release version of Windows PowerShell 2.0 before you upgrade.
Windows Server 2008 SP2, Standard and Enterprise editions 64-bit only. 32-bit or Itanium architecture–based operating systems are not supported.
Windows Server 2008, Standard and Enterprise editions 64-bit only. 32-bit or Itanium architecture–based operating systems are not supported. - KB971254
- KB962975
- KB975759
- KB2279769 Important: After installing all updates, restart the computer before you install DPM.

For more information about Windows Server 2008 system requirements, see Windows Server 2008 System Requirements.

Disk requirements

DPM requires a disk that is dedicated to the storage pool and a disk that is dedicated to the following:

  • System files

  • DPM installation files

  • DPM prerequisite software

  • DPM database files

Note the following:

  • DPM owns and manages the disks in the storage pool, which must be dynamic. For purposes of DPM, disk is defined as any disk device manifested as a disk in Disk Management. For more information about the types of disks that the storage pool supports and how to plan your disk configuration, see Planning the Storage Pool.

  • If you want to manage your own additional disk space, DPM enables you to attach or associate custom volumes to data sources that you are protecting in a protection group. Custom volumes can be on basic or dynamic disks. Any volume that is attached to the DPM server can be selected as a custom volume; however, DPM cannot manage the space in custom volumes. Note that DPM will not delete any existing volumes on the disk attached to the storage pool to make the entire disk space available.

  • If you have critical data that you want to store, you can use a high-performance logical unit number (LUN) on a storage area network rather than the DPM-managed storage pool.

  • The DPM storage pool disks cannot be .VHD – they must be either iSCSI attached disks or pass-through disks. The following types of disk configuration are supported as DPM storage pool:

    • Pass-through disk with host direct attached storage (DAS)

    • Pass-through iSCSI LUN which is attached to host.

    • Pass-through FC LUN which is attached to host.

    • iSCSI target LUN which is connected to DPM virtual machine directly.

  • Short-term or long-term backup to tape will be limited to using iSCSI attached tape libraries, and we recommend a separate NIC for that connection.

  • you cannot install DPM on the disk that is dedicated to the storage pool, which is a set of disks on which the DPM server stores the replicas and recovery points for the protected data.

Installation requirements and limitations

This section summarizes installation requirements, prerequisites, and limitations.

DPM server requirements

  • You can install DPM on the same volume that the operating system is installed on, or you can install DPM on a different volume that does not include the operating system.

  • DPM server DPM is designed to run on a dedicated, single-purpose server. The DPM server should not be installed on any of the following:

    • A computer on which the Application Server role is installed.

    • A computer that is an Operations Manager management server

    • A computer on which Exchange Server is running.

    • A computer that is a cluster node.

  • DPM is not supported on the Turkish language version of any of the listed Windows Server versions.

  • The following prerequisites are required for installation:

    • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1)

    • Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable

    • Windows PowerShell 2.0

    • Windows Installer 4.5 or later versions

    • Windows Single Instance Store (SIS)

    • Microsoft Application Error Reporting

    Setup automatically installs these if they are not already installed or enabled. If any pre-requisites cannot be installed during setup, or if you want to install them before you install DPM, you can install them manually. For more information, see Setup prerequisites.

  • After you have installed DPM, we recommend that you run Windows Update on the DPM server and, if you use a remote database, on the remote computer where the DPM database is located, and install all important updates or hotfixes.

SQL Server requirements

For the DPM database, DPM requires a dedicated instance of the 64-bit version of SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1, Enterprise or Standard Edition. During setup, you can select either to have DPM Setup install SQL Server 2008 R2 on the DPM server, or you can specify that DPM use a remote instance of SQL Server.

If you do not have a licensed version of SQL Server 2008 R2, you can install an evaluation version from the setup DVD. To install the evaluation version, do not provide the product key when you are prompted. However, you must buy a license for SQL Server if you want to continue to use it after the evaluation period.

When you use a remote instance of SQL Server with the DPM installation, note the following requirements:

  • You must install the remote instance of SQL Server before you install DPM.

    Important

    A remote instance of SQL Server on a domain controller is not supported.

  • The computer that is running a remote instance of SQL Server must be located in the same domain and time zone as the DPM server.

  • Setup creates the DPMDBReaders$<DPM server name> and DPMDBAdministrators$<DPM server name> local groups on the computer that is running the remote instance of SQL Server. You must add DPM administrators to these groups for DPM to use the remote instance of SQL Server.

  • For the DPM server to access a remote instance of SQL Server through Windows Firewall, you must configure an exception on the computer that is running SQL Server to use port 80.

  • You must install the DPM support files on the computer that is running the remote instance of SQL Server. For more information, see Install DPM as an Azure virtual machine.

  • You cannot user a clustered instance of SQL Server 2012 to host a remote DPM database.

  • You cannot host the DPM database on a SQL Server AlwaysOn deployment.

In addition to installing programs that are required for DPM, SQL Server Setup installs the following programs, which are not required for DPM:

  • Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1

  • Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Query Tools

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Native Client

  • Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0

  • Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components

Note

These programs are not removed when you uninstall DPM or when you uninstall the last instance of SQL Server. You must uninstall these programs manually.

Data source limits for DPM server

The following table lists the data source limits that a DPM server can protect (if it meets the minimum hardware requirements) and the recommended disk space required for the DPM server.

Platform Data source limit Recommended disk space
64-bit computers 600 volumes, of which 300 are replica volumes and 300 are recovery point volumes

Data sources are typically spread across approximately 75 servers and 150 client computers.		 120 TB per DPM server, with 80 TB replica size with a maximum recovery point size of 40 TB

Requirements for protected computers

For a complete list of DPM protection support for computers and workloads, see the DPM protection support matrix. Prerequisites for computers running the DPM protection agent are summarized in the following table. If any prerequisites cannot be installed during setup, or if you want to install them before you install DPM, you can install them manually. For more information, see Setup prerequisites.

Protected workload Prerequisites
Computer volumes - 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.
- Computers must have the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed.
File Servers Before you can protect a file server running Windows Server 2008 R2, you must apply the hotfix KB977381
Exchange Note the following when protecting Exchange:

 
  • Before you can protect Exchange Server 2007 data in a Clustered Continuous Replication (CCR) configuration, you must apply KB940006.
  • The eseutil.exe and ese.dll versions that are installed on the most recent release of Exchange Server must be the same versions that are installed on the DPM server. So if you’re using the 64-bit version of DPM, you must have the 64-bit version of eseutil.exe and ese.dll.
  • 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. Do the following 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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”
Hyper-V To protect Hyper-V, note the following:

 
  • For a clustered or non-clustered computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, apply the hotfix described in KB975354
  • For a clustered computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, also apply the hotfix described in KB975921
  • Before you can protect a computer running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, you must apply the following updates:

     
SharePoint When protecting SharePoint, note the following:

 
  • Before you can protect a computer running Office SharePoint Server 2007, you must apply the update in KB941422
  • If you use the Office SharePoint Server Search service, before you can protect Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 data, you must apply the following updates:

     

Administration options

In addition to managing DPM directly from the DPM server, you can use the following options:

  • Use DPM Remote Administration

  • Use DPM Central Console

DPM Remote Administration

DPM Remote Administration allows you to work on your DPM servers from any computer. It also supports task-based scripting. You can install it on the following operating systems:

  • Windows 8

  • Windows 7

  • Windows Vista

  • Windows Server 2008 R2

  • Windows Server 2008

Computers from which you want to remotely administer DPM require the following prerequisites:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1)

If any prerequisites cannot be installed during setup, or if you want to install them before you install DPM, you can install them manually. For more information, see Setup prerequisites.

DPM Central Console

With DPM Central Console you can monitor and manage multiple DPM servers from one location. You can monitor and troubleshoot servers running both DPM 2010 QFE2 with feature pack and DPM. DPM Central Console must be installed on Operations Manager server or a computer running Operations Manager Console. You can install it on the following operating systems:

  • Windows 7

  • Windows Vista

Computers from which you want to run DPM Central Console require the following prerequisites:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1)

If any prerequisites cannot be installed during setup, or if you want to install them before you install DPM, you can install them manually. For more information, see Setup prerequisites.

Network requirements

The following are the network requirements for System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM):

  • DPM must be installed on a 64-bit computer that is located in a Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2003 Active Directory domain.

  • DPM can protect servers and workstations across domains within a forest that has a two-way trust relationship with the domain that the DPM server is located in. If there is not a two-way trust across domains, you can protect the computers using DPM’s support for computers in workgroups or untrusted domains. For more information, see Managing Protected Computers in Workgroups and Untrusted Domains.

    DPM supports data protection across forests as long as you establish a forest-level, two-way trust between the separate forests. To set up a forest-level trust relationship, both domains must be in Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2003 forest mode.

  • If you are protecting data over a wide area network (WAN), there is a minimum network bandwidth requirement of 512 kilobits per second (Kbps).

  • DPM does not support disjointed namespaces.