Protecting Farms Using Mirrored Databases

Article
05/17/2011

Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM) SP1 extends DPM’s support for SharePoint to include support for SharePoint content databases that uses SQL Server database mirroring technology. This additional support does not translate into any major changes in the procedure to protect or recover SharePoint data in DPM. The following sections call out any changes in procedure.

Prerequisites

Install DPM protection agents on both the instances of SQL Server that host the database (principal and the mirror).
DPM does not support mirroring the database on the same instance of SQL Server.

Common Scenarios

A protected SharePoint database gets mirrored

At the time of the backup, DPM detects that the database has been mirrored and raises an alert. You must stop protection for the farm (with retain data) and re-protect it. DPM updates the logical replicas of the protected server.

Note

DPM maintains a single replica for the mirror.

Principal partner in a mirror fails over and fails back before next backup

This scenario does not affect protection in any way unless a backup is in progress.

Principal partner fails and the mirror server takes over

DPM detects that the mirror is now the principal partner, stops the backup job, and performs a consistency check after 30 minutes on the database that failed over. Alternatively, you can start a manual consistency check on the farm after the alert is raised.

Note

If during these 30 minutes, the database fails back to the original principal, DPM detects this and resumes protection after performing a consistency check.

A mirror is broken

When the mirror is broken for a mirrored SQL Server database that is currently protected by DPM, backups fail with alerts. Remove protection (with retain data) for the SQL Server database and reprotect or restore the mirroring session.

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