DPM overview

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Data Protection Manager, System Center 2012 - Data Protection Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager

System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM) is an enterprise backup system that you can use to back up data from a source location to a target location on the DPM server. DPM can create both full backups or incremental backups of data.

All_Symbols_Cloud Did you know that Microsoft Azure provides similar functionality in the cloud? Learn more about Microsoft Azure storage solutions.

Create a hybrid storage solution in Microsoft Azure:
- Configure Azure Backup to prepare for back up of Windows Server
- Configure Azure backup for DPM data
- Learn about Azure backup and how it integrates with your on-premises DPM environment

If the original protected data becomes unavailable at any time, you can use DPM to restore the data from the secondary location on the DPM server back to the source location. DPM can back up application data from Microsoft servers and workloads, and file data from servers and client computers. It can also create bare-metal backups of Windows servers to completely restore a system. However, DPM does not support creating bare-metal backups of client operating systems.

DPM can be used for the following tasks:

  • Data backup—Back up data to and recover data from Windows servers, Windows client computers, and supported Microsoft applications. For more details, see the DPM protection support matrix, and Plan for data backup and protection.

  • Data storage—Back up data to different storage types, including tape, disk, and the Microsoft Azure cloud. For more information, see Plan DPM storage.

  • Data recovery—Recover data from any backed up data source using the DPM console. For more information, see Plan for data recovery.

Note: Before you deploy DPM, read DPM protection support matrix, Plan for data backup and protection and Install DPM.

DPM can be deployed in the following environments:

  • Physical server——You can run DPM on a physical server. You can’t deploy physical DPM servers in a cluster, but you can manage multiple physical DPM servers from a single console by installing Central Console on System Center Operations Manager.

  • Hyper-V virtual machine—You can run DPM as a virtual machine hosted on an on-premises Hyper-V host server. In this configuration you’ll need to make sure that DPM has access to all necessary resources and to the disks it needs for the storage pool. For details, see Install DPM as a virtual machine on an on-premises Hyper-V server.

  • Azure virtual machine—For DPM 2012 R2 Update 3 and later, you can run DPM as a virtual machine in Azure. However, this type of deployment does not support the backup of all workloads. For details, see Install DPM as an Azure virtual machine.