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Deploy the client protection auto-deployment management pack

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 - Data Protection Manager

You can deploy the Operations Manager System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM) Client Protection Auto-Deployment management pack to do the following:

  • Discover DPM servers in your environment.

  • Discover protected client computers under each DPM server.

  • Include one or more DPM servers for auto deployment.

  • Exclude one or more DPM servers from auto deployment.

  • Specify the maximum DPM capacity for protecting client machines (default is 1000).

  • Discover client machines from Active Directory for specified domains.

  • Specify client exclusions.

  • Specify default protection group settings for auto deployment.

  • Filter protected clients and create batches of client machines for protection on each DPM.

  • Auto-protect clients on all DPM servers every day.

  • Identify successful/failed clients for each assignment from DPM server’s event log.

Setting up the management pack

Operations Manager: On the Operations Manager server on which auto protection will be enabled, download and install the ClientAD.msi which includes the management pack.

DPM: On the DPM servers install Operations Manager agents. Then from the Operations Manager console, enable client auto-deployment.

Client computers: When the client computer connects to the network, DPM will automatically back up its data.

Here’s the topology:

Client Auto Deployment Topology

The process is a follows:

  1. Download and install the ClientAD.msi Client Auto Deployment management pack )(ClientAD.msi) and install it on an Operations Manager server. The management pack is included in the download.

  2. Install the Operations Manager agents on the DPM servers that protect the client computers. This ensures that the DPM servers discoverable by the Operations Manager server. Operations Manager runs discovery once every 24 hours.

  3. After it’s found at least one DPM server Operations Manager server creates a list of all the client computers in the protected domains on DPM servers that have auto-protection enabled.

  4. Operations Manager then compares the list of computer with the list of protected and excluded computers and creates a list of the computers that need protection but aren’t part of a protection group. Using this list, Operations Manager creates protection groups assigning a maximum of 100 laptop computers per DPM server per day.

  5. When a computer connects to the network, System Center Configuration Manager installs the DPM protection agent on the computer and assigns it to the appropriate DPM server.

  6. After a computer’s added to a protection group, DPM triggers backups based on the protection group settings.

Views

The DPM Client Auto Deployment management pack provides the following views on the Operations Manager console:

View Name Description
Auto deployment alerts Alerts caused by auto deployment operations such as AD query failed, Auto protection failed due to System Center Operation Manager reboot, and so on.
Auto deployment DPM server state All the DPM servers discovered with details such as DPM Version, Available free capacity, Included/excluded status, and so on.
Auto deployment server state State of auto deployment server.
DPM server alerts Alerts specific to auto protection of a DPM server such as Create protection group failure, SLA threshold not met, and so on.
Protected clients state View of all protected clients in different DPM servers.
Stale clients state View of client computers that have not been backed up for 90 days (by default) or the period specified by the administrator.

Next steps

Check the Client auto deployment prerequisites [TO DELETE]].