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Disaster Recovery

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Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2010

Using System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM), you can prepare for disaster recovery by doing the following:

  1. Backing up protected computer system state. DPM allows you to protect the system information of a computer and will allow you to get the computer back up after a disaster. System protection is basically about protecting the operating system files, application files and the user files or data files on the computer.
    DPM treats the system protection data source as two components – Bare Metal Restore (BMR), and System State protection.

    • BMR consists of protecting the operating system files and all data on critical volumes except for user data.

    • System State protection consists of protecting the operating system files.

    DPM uses Windows Server Backup (WSB) to perform System State backup and BMR backup. For recovery, DPM will retrieve the backups and you will use it to perform recovery using WSB.

  2. Adding a secondary DPM server. A secondary DPM server can protect and restore the databases and replicas of primary DPM servers, which are DPM servers directly protecting file and application data sources. You can restore protected computers directly from the secondary DPM server. The secondary DPM server can also protect computers until the primary DPM server is available.

    -or-

    Backing up DPM databases to tape. You can use a DPM server to back up its own databases to its tape library, or you can use third-party software to back up the databases to tape or removable media. Backup of the DPM databases enables you to recover the configuration of protection groups after you reinstall DPM.

    Important

    Of the preceding options, adding a secondary DPM server provides the greatest amount of protection. At a minimum, it is strongly recommended that you back up the DPM databases regularly, either using DPM or third-party software.