Extend DPM Schema manually

In one of the project, somehow or rather, not be able to use DPM management console to extend the schema. Lots of people is looking for the manual way to extend DPM schema. There is also a time why you need to do so, to extend this feature to other trusted domain users to have end user recovery.

Steps:

Copy the following file in DPM server \Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\End User Recovery\DPMADSchemaExtension.exe. Run it in your forest. (Note: you will need to have schema admin and domain admin on the forest)

In the Enter Data Protection Manager Computer Name dialog box, type the name of the computer for which you want end-user recovery data in Active Directory Domain Services, and then click OK.

Type the DNS domain name of the DPM computer for which you want end-user recovery data in Active Directory Domain Services, and then click OK.

In the Active Directory Configuration for Data Protection Manager dialog box, click OK.

Wait for a while, it will then show you the result.

Once extended, you can then enable the end user recovery by:

In DPM Administrator Console, on the Action menu, click Options.

In the Options dialog box, on the End-user Recovery tab, select the check box for the Enable end-user recovery option, and then click OK.

Not be able to see SQL interface in DPM protection group

In one of the recent deployment, when to protect a SQL server 2005, we are not be able to see the SQL interface.

All the pre-req is met. With few hours of checking, noticed that there is one DB, which is the root cause of the problem. This DB ends with "blank".

After bringing the DB offline, we can then see the SQL interface and protect other DB.

A good experience. We are in DPM SP1, running on Windows 2008.

Multiple protection group to one tape (Data Colocation)

In DPM 2007, one protection group to allocate in one tape.

However, DPM 2007 allows to collocate protection groups on a tape. Then, you can group recovery points of multiple protection groups on a single tape. This will save the tape if you have lots of protection group. This feature, called Data Colocation.

To enable and disable this feature, please download and install KB 949779 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=122329).

After install the update, you can then enable or disable data colocation using DPM Management Shell.

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DPMServerName -OptimizeTapeUsage $True

DPM and SAN

Is there any benefits if you have your data in SAN and use a DPM to protect it? For sure it has.

Lets say you have Exchange data stored in a SAN, and you would like to protect using DPM. If your Exchange is running on CCR (Cluster Continuous Replication), you will be able to backup DPM from a passive node.

Few things for you to start with if you have a SAN:
(NOTE: you will want to ask from your SAN vendor about the features that you can use/supported using DPM)

1) Replica. As the first replica of your DB/Data, you can make use of the "clone", this will save your time and performance from getting the data from the original server through a network.

2) Recovery. You can make use of SAN based recovery in DPM. What this will do is, instead of recover through network, you make use of SAN based recovery, this will save your network bandwidth as well as time to recover.

DPM - data recovery

In one of our DPM deployment, there are some questions on the data recovery side of DPM. Just to share:

DPM created "point-in-time" copy of the replica during the set schedule (can be 15 mins, can be an hour, depending on your data type - files and folder is one hour and supported applications like Exchange and SQL is about 15 minutes). DPM will be able to maintains up to 64 recovery points for files/folders and 448 express full with 96 incremental backups!

So, if you calculate in detail, you have more than 300,000 recovery points in a year if you put your short term recovery to disk, or mix of disk and tape.

Control the location for SMSPKG$ share

SMS & SCCM distribution point by default will always look for the most free disk space drive and create the SMSPKG$ share resided on the drive. If you did not manage it properly, the SMSPKG$ share may exist on multiple drive and those shared content might content different package source and it is very hard for you to consolidate those content into single location.

Some of you may asking is that possible to dedicate a specific location and prevent the distribution point from creating the shared everywhere? Answer is Yes, we can do that. Below are the simple steps to accomplish the task:

1. On the target drive (where you would like to store the distribution package), create a shared folder and grant permission for SCCM service account & machine account.
2. In ConfigMgr console, browse to site system, then create a server share.
   
3. Specify the server share as distribution point, and then remove the default distribution point (If you perform this in production envinronment, make sure you backup all your distribution packages first).

After the above action been done, you will notice that the SMSPKG$ will only create under the shared folder you specified.

AD schema is not extended or SLP is not present. Cannot continue site assignment

You may received the error - "AD schema is not extended or SLP is not present. Cannot continue site assignment." log in LocationServices.log when the SCCM client is successfully installed on the machine, but the SCCM client failed to discover primary site.

If the above entry is log, there are few things you may need to look into before you proceed with further action:

1. Is the Management Point publish in Active Directory?
   
2. Is the Management Point publish in DNS?
3. If you are using WINS for name resolution, you may need SLP registered in WINS.

How if the above components are already in-place but the SCCM client is still failed to discover primary site?

Another simple trick, try to verify your network DNS & WINS settings, the SCCM client may failed to assign to primary site due to incorrect assignment of DNS & WINS address.

SCCM Client Push Installation failed

I believed most of you guys may facing this problem when try to push SCCM client to the workstations using Client Push Installation. When you failed to push the client from SCCM server, first thing come to your mind maybe is Windows Firewall blocking that. But somehow, after you enable necessary ports for SCCM Client Push Installation at Windows Firewall, it still doesnt work. After that you might try to stop the Windows Firewall service at the workstation, but still no luck...

Recently during we work on one large SCCM deployment, we found one interesting stuff. Here begin the story, we suspected one of the workstation is infected by virus, because the users is complaining the machine is slow and very difficult for the user to perform daily work. Unfortunately, that machine haven't installed with SCCM client yet. Therefore, we went down to the machine and perform a virus scan, we also tried to extract the local machine antivirus program logs file to understand the machine condition. After we gather all the necessary logs files, we found few interesting entries from the log:

C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup.exe
Prevent remote creation/modification/deletion of anything in the Windows folder and subfolders. Action: Blocked

C:\Windows\SMSClientInstall
Prevent remote creation/modification/deletion of anything in the Windows folder and subfolders. Action: Blocked

I hope the above information can give you guys a hint when you hit such a problem in the future. Do share this with your customer if you facing this problem.

Happy New Year 2009

Dear System Center Fans,

Good day and thanks for the support in year 2008. Please continue to support us in year 2009.

Happy New Year 2009!!!

Poo, Paul and the rest of the team.

System Center Presentation Video

Guys, good day.

Just presented a session in System Center Solution Summit 2008 in Malaysia.

Attched the video file:

There are:

1) How to add ESX to SCVMM 2008
2) How to perform VMotion in SCVMM 2008
3) Powershell with SCVMM2008

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/SCUG

Cheers

DPM 2007 SP1 - What you want to know to install it today

Its being a while, playing with DPM 2007. Knowing that this is a great product - yet still get some feedback about it, eg: Only be able to backup data within a forest.

Now, with DPM 2007 SP1 launch, not long ago. One of the features that impress me - be able to backup Windows servers that supported acorss different forest with a trust!

For sure in an environment, there are reasons for different forest - this is now, a solution.

Another that make me install immediately - you can also make DPM your file server! Yes, it is not recommended - but for branch offices, for sure it will lower down TCO. However, you will need to run some commands in the powershell to activate it.

Set-DPMGlobalProperty –AllowLocalDataProtection $true [-DPMServerName]

For Exchange, it is now be able to backup SCR! Do visit my Exchange blog for more information.

To know more before you install? visit this URL:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd347836.aspx

Just installed it and works smoothly. What are you waiting for?

Verify SQL connection from your machine

Everyone know System Center products are heavily rely on SQL server, we must prepare the SQL server first in order to proceed with the System Center products installation. Sometimes we would like to verify the connectivity between System Center servers and SQL servers, since we are not SQL server expert, how we gonna achieve that by using tools or is there any other primitive way (such as ping, or telnet command in command prompt) to troubleshoot that?

Here, I would like to share with everyone a good tip.

Create a blank text file on your desktop using Notepad, and then rename the text file extension from 'txt' to 'udl'. Double click the udl file, a Data Link Properties windows will prompt out. Here we go! Now we are able to test out the SQL connectivity by using this small interface! Is that cool?

Although this is not a big news, I doubt a lot of developers knew about this, and I got this tip from my best friend Koh Nyap Hong. He is a great developer and thanks for him to share this tip with me. Now, I would like to share this tool with all IT Professionals, this will be a very useful tool for you to troubleshoot some basic SQL errors.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 RTM is now Available!

MAP 3.2 RTM is now available!! This RTM released has expanded its assessment capabilities to SQL Server 2008, ForeFront/NAP, Microsoft Online Services migration, as well as providing a Power Savings assessment.

MAP 3.2 assessment areas now include:

• SQL Server 2008 Migration Proposals and Reports (NEW)
• Forefront/NAP Readiness Proposals (NEW)
• Microsoft Online Services Migration Surveys, Proposals, and Reports (NEW)
• Power Savings Proposals (NEW)
• Server Migration Reports and Proposals (Windows Server 2008 and "virtualized guests by hosts" reporting) (NEW)
• Server Consolidation Reports and Proposals (Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Hyper-V)
• Desktop Security Assessment to determine if desktops have anti-virus and anti-malware programs installed and up-to-date, or if the Windows Firewall is turned on
• Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 Hardware Assessment Reports and Proposals

If you are interested to download or if you would like to know more about it, please visit the website below:
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

SRS Server Validation Error while installing Operation Manager Reporting

We tried to install Operation Manager Reporting on Windows 2008, but during the installation, the wizard showed the error "SRS Server Validation Error". We spent quite sometimes to do troubleshooting and verify the step-by-step installation procedures (inclusive SQL 2005 & SQL 2005 SP2 installation), but we found nothing wrong with those procedures. Furthermore, the SQL Reporting Service Configuration did not return any error and every components are showing healthy status.

After hours of troubleshooting, I found that the IIS 7.0 does not allow executable script and program to run on the SQL reporting virtual directory. After we make some permissions changes on the SQL reporting virtual directory, the installation then can be completed with no error.

Below are the steps for editting the virtual directory permissions:

1. In IIS Manager, open the Sites folder, and then open the folder of the Web site that contains the report server virtual directory.
2. Select the report server virtual directory.
3. In the IIS area, double-click HTTP Handlers.
4. In the Actions pane, click Edit Handler Permissions.
5. Click Script, and then click OK.

If the above matter cannot help you, try to verify your SQL reporting service status by using Reporting Service Configuration, make sure all components and services are in healthy status.

Managing Open Source in Operation Manager x64 Environment

In enterprise data center environment, some of the customer might interested on managing Open Source servers using Operation Manager.

Microsoft Connect introduced a Cross Platform Extensions for Operation Manager, which provide open source dll runtime to Operation Manager for querying the open source systems and as well as various open source system's Management Pack.

Previously this Cross Platform Extensions can only be able to run on 32-bit Operation Manager, but Microsoft Connect one again introduced a new Cross Platform Extensions Beta Update Yesterday!! Now, Operation Manager that run on 64-bit platform will also be able to manage open source system with this new update!

Currently, the Cross Platform Extensions only be able to manage the following open source platform:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
• Suse 10.1
• HP UX 11.31
• Solaris 10
• AIX 5.3 (New in Beta Update)

If you guys are interested on managing open source using Operation Manager 2007, register yourself and downlaod the installer from Microsoft Connect site!

• 
  

Paul's Sys-Center Shared

Dear all,

Thanks for visiting and supporting System Center Product Blog. I will share out my video & files at SkyDrive in the future. Feel free to grab those video & files for your kind perusal.

Paul's Sys-Center Shared

If you guys are interested on contributing to community, feel free to contact us. Cheers.

Managing SCVMM 2008 using SCOM 2007

Since System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is still in beta stage, is there a way for Operation Manager 2007 to manage it? We are trying to sort it out and try to make it become possible...

Finally, we've found the VMM 2008 Management Pack for Operation Manger is actually resided in the VMM's bits itself, this is amazing!

By the way, before you can install the VMM 2008 management pack into Ops Manager, below are few prerequisites management pack you need to load:

• Windows Server Internet Information Services Library
• Windows Server Internet Information Services 2003
• SQL Server Core Library
• SQL Server 2005 (Discovery)
• SQL Server 2005 (Monitoring)
  

Below is the video for installing SCVMM 2008 management pack into SCOM 2007. For those virtualization fans, share this with your friends.

DPM - Virtual Tape

One of our participants on the DPM class is asking if we can test out the Tape functionality in DPM without installing a real Tape Library? Yes you can.

Thanks to FireSteamer.

You can download and use it for 30 days trial from:

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Tools/VirtualTape

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator Installation Prerequisites

I just tried to install MAP on virtual machine. I found that there are few components you need to install before installing MAP on your system.

Below are the list of required components:

• .Net Framework 2.0
• Microsoft Office 2007 or Microsoft Office 2003 with SP2
• SQL Express or SQL Server
  

The installation steps is pretty straight forward. Just you need to specified the database (there is a wizard provided by MAP to help you go through this process) if you run an assessment project.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator Available NOW!

A Great news for SCCM & Virtualization Fans!

Since Windows Server 2008 & Windows Vista SP1 are hot topic right now, you might think of migrating your current environment to this new technology. But how well you know about your current environment if you do not have proper IT Assessment process in place?

With the release of Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator, you may now make use of this tool to gather and organizes system resources and device information from a single computer. Another good news, you do not need to worry about deploying the agent to every system on your network (because most of the assessment tool need a agent on remote system to gather device information), and it is AGENTLESS!!

If you are interested, just visit the sites below and gather the information needed:

Download MAP 3.1: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111000

Read more about MAP: http://www.microsoft.com/MAP

View demos on Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/MAPBLOG/

If you guys got any comment on this tool, feel free to feedback to us!