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?