Does anyone have any tips for making my Azure Online Recovery Points take less time to complete?  I have some that take on average about 8 hours.  How can I make these shorter?  I imagine I need to create a better scheduling model for my protection groups, but I could use some advice.

Things to know about our env.:

• We have a fast site-to-site connection with Azure of 1 Gig.  Actual throughput is around 500 mbit up/down.
• We have our DPM servers virtualized in Hyper-V.  Each has a minimum of 8 GB of RAM, 4 CPUs, Win 2012 Std.
• We use Clustered Shared Volumes.
• Protection Groups like this one (shown below) creates an online recovery point every 24 hours. Some PGs are creating Hyper-V recovery points and others are creating SQL recovery points. I am not sure if that matters.  The below pic is filtered on one job that historically takes a long time.

Any advice is appreciated.

David Jenner IT Systems Engineer Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Hi,

I've had issues with ILR on my DPM box for a while now. Its comes up with the eroro stating about dynamic volumes, no volumes, DPM role or auto mounting not being enabled. The ID is 958 and the error code is 0x80990F4E.

What I have found is that it wont do a ILR mount on a server with more than one disc. I have a couple of servers where I've stuck the data on a different VHDX and these aren't viewable in the recovery console. Single VHDX servers go in fine.

When I mount a single VHDX server I get in the event log

I don't get any log entries on servers with the issue.

Looking at the DPM  logs when it fails I see

15:28:46.345 22 nativevhdprovider.cpp(174) [0000000000A26A60] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80070013] : c:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\DPM\DPM\DpmVhds\bf56ca19-a372-4f2b-94fc-c0cfd3e861b5.diff.vhdx: lVal : pfnCreateVirtualDisk(&storageType, ssDiffVhdPath.PeekStr(), VIRTUAL_DISK_ACCESS_CREATE, NULL, CREATE_VIRTUAL_DISK_FLAG_NONE, 0, &createParam, NULL, &hDisk)
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 hypervvhdhelper.cpp(155) [00000000009C26A0] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80070013] : m_pVHDProvider->CreateDifferencingVhd() path:[c:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\DPM\DPM\DpmVhds\bf56ca19-a372-4f2b-94fc-c0cfd3e861b5.diff.vhdx], parent path:[c:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\DPM\DPM\DpmVhds\bf56ca19-a372-4f2b-94fc-c0cfd3e861b5.vhdx]
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 hypervvhdmanager.cpp(340) [0000000000A32A90] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990e52] : CreateDifferencingVhd: ssParentPath [\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy389\76b21287-0f74-4580-bb7a-eb1f55c32a6c\Full\D-Vol\Email\Exchange2013\Skinner2_BEDFAB9E-DD04-417E-BE5C-8E042B21F78E.avhdx]
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 vhdmanager.cpp(270) [0000000000A32A90] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990e52] : Encountered Failure: : lVal : MountVhdInternal(ssVhdIdentifierInCache, ssParentPath, psErrorDetail)
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 vhdutils.cpp(78)  99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL arrVhdChain[0] is [\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy389\76b21287-0f74-4580-bb7a-eb1f55c32a6c\Full\D-Vol\Email\Exchange2013\Skinner2_BEDFAB9E-DD04-417E-BE5C-8E042B21F78E.avhdx]
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 vhdutils.cpp(78)  99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL arrVhdChain[1] is [\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy389\76b21287-0f74-4580-bb7a-eb1f55c32a6c\Full\D-Vol\Email\Exchange2013\Skinner2.vhdx]
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 inquirysubtask.cpp(1222) [0000000000A2C160] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990f4e] Ignoring processing error, processing continues for other nodes
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 inquirysubtask.cpp(1705) [0000000000A2C160] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990f4e] CInquirySubTask::CreateAndLogError::Adding inquiry error for component
188C 2088 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 inquirysubtask.cpp(1031) [0000000000A2C160] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL <--CInquirySubTask::ExecuteInquiry
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 inquirysubtask.cpp(458) [0000000000A2C160] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL Sending final response with 1 records
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 vhdutils.cpp(51)  99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990f4e] : \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy389\76b21287-0f74-4580-bb7a-eb1f55c32a6c\Full\D-Vol\Email\Exchange2013\Skinner2_BEDFAB9E-DD04-417E-BE5C-8E042B21F78E.avhdx: lVal : E_COORD_HYPERV_VHD_MOUNT_FAILED
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 nevhd.cpp(124)  99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990f4e] : Encountered Failure: : lVal : VHDUtils::MountAndEnumerateVHD(ssId, arrVhdChain, arrVolLabel, arrVolGuid, arrVolId)
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 nevhd.cpp(61) [0000000000A2BBA0] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990f4e] : Encountered Failure: : lVal : EnumerateVHDChildren(m_path, traversingReplica, callback)
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 61 inquirysubtask.cpp(990) [0000000000A2C160] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL CInquirySubTask::Inquiry finished with status [0000000000]
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 03 workitem.cpp(296) [0000000000A2A880] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D ACTIVITY WorkItem stopping
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 vsssnapshotrequestor.cpp(122) [0000000000A2C4A8] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL CVssSnapshotRequestor::~CVssSnapshotRequestor [0000000000A2C4A8]
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 vsssnapshotrequestor.cpp(2182) [0000000000A2C4A8] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL CVssSnapshotRequestor::CleanUp [0000000000A2C4A8]
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 vsssnapshotrequestor.cpp(1768) [0000000000A2C4A8] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL CVssSnapshotRequestor::ReleaseVolumesForSnapshot [0000000000A2C4A8]
188C 13FC 05/11 15:28:46.345 31 vssbaserequestor.cpp(69) [0000000000A2C4A8] 99303538-624D-4F25-AB30-45F6D758E77D NORMAL CVssBaseRequestor: destructor [0000000000A2C4A8]
188C 110C 05/11 15:28:53.896 22 vdshelper.cpp(923) [0000000000A2D530]  WARNING Failed: Hr: = [0x80990fb0] Disk [\\?\PHYSICALDRIVE7] is not found as unknown
188C 110C 05/11 15:28:53.896 22 vdshelper.cpp(1892) [0000000000A2D530]  NORMAL Disk Name, fIsDiskFound = Port0Path0Target0Lun0, 0x0
188C 110C 05/11 15:28:53.896 22 vdshelper.cpp(1892) [0000000000A2D530]  NORMAL

It was working fine up until a couple of months ago.

Anyone got any ideas? I really hope it wasn't the new Anti-Virus I installed

I have DPM 2012 R2 running on server 2012 R2. Dpm backup vms through Hyper-V host. Some of the vms have this additional vhd drive with name "_DoNotBackup.vhd". Used this command Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DPMServerName dpmServer-HyperVPagefileExclusions"_DoNotBackup.vhd"  few days ago. Backup occurs very night. Today I restored one of the vm which has "_DoNotBackup.vhd" and found it has latest data which means HyperVPagefileExclusions not working.

Any clue?

Hi,

I am currently configuring DPM 2012 R2 in a hosted environment. As part of this I am trying to test the recover of a Hyper-V VM to a different physical host from its original location using the "Recover as virtual machine to any host" option. However when using this option all it seems to do is move the virtual machine from 1 physical host to another and does not apply the recovery point.

Current environment configuration:

3 x Physical Server hosts (all Windows Server 2012 R2) configured as a failover cluster (inc storage)

Hyper-V 2012 R2 role installed on all 3 hosts

System Center VMM 2012 R2 used to manage Virtual Machines

Steps used in the process are as follows:

1. In the DPM console select the Recovery option

2. Browse to the VM you want to restore

3. Expand the VM node and select "All Protected Hyper-V Data"

4. Select Recoverable item in the Path list

5. Right-Click and select "Show all recovery points"

6. Select the recovery point to restore and click Recovery

7. On the Review Recovery Selection page click Next

8. Select the "Recovery as virtual machine to any host"

9. Click Next

10. Click Browse

11. Select the Hyper-V physical host and clustered storage location for where the VM is going to be recovered to.

12. Click Ok.

13. Click Next

14. Click Next again

15. On the Summary page click Recover

16. The recovery process with proceed and restore the virtual machine to a different physical host but will not recovery the virtual machine as per the recovery point.

Can anyone please confirm if I am using the correct process or whether I am doing something obviously wrong in this process?

Hi,

I have found that there is a script called AddNewClusteredVM.ps1, but this is for DPM2010. We have DPM2012, does the script work on 2012 also or is there another way to automatically add new VM to protectiongroups ??

Hi guys,

I've been fighting for a long time (almost 6 years in multiple clients) with no luck to perform host level backups using SCDPM and a Hyper-V cluster without crashing everything. I've already opened a thread on this forum that can be reach athttps://goo.gl/qgz435

I've already tried multiple alternatives (hardware snapshots, softwares snapshots, serial backups, backup vms on the same CSV, and so on) ... In the end I always have a broken Hyper-V cluster no matter what I do ... some vm's don't start correctly, other vms loose configuration, others won't boot at all (no os found) ... a lot of time spent in support calls and last but not least a lot of client's criticisms about DPM (even the latest version 2k12R2 with UR 9) not being able to perform such a simple thing like a host level backup of a three win2k12 r2 cluster completely patched and using the best practices (management network, vm network and so son, iscs network, and so on)

I am really curious if someone is succeeding to perform this kind of thing without a crash and without a single event on the cluster manager, when I say crash I mean terrible things like vms that were booting not recognizing the c: drive anymore, vms that I need to delete snapshots because they can't start at all ... and so on.

My last attempt to perform a host level backup finished with:
1069 - error code 0x2 (system could not find the specified file)
5142 - The cluster shared volume could not be accessed by this node due to error 1460
1146 - the cluster RHS was finished and will be restarted
1230
5120
1254
and so on

Could someone share some experience?

Thank you very much!
--marcos

We recently purchased a Compellent SAN.   Are there any known conflicts or issues we should watch out for?

We are having strange issues when DPM backs up at night.  At times VMs seem to randomly lose connection.  Most nights at least 1 or 2 VMs get a disk error and have to be turned off the next morning and back on again.  Some nights this happens with many VMs.  One night we even had a VM get hung backing up and it froze the Hyper-V host it was on.

Any ideas what could be causing these issues?  Does DPM conflict with replays (compellent snapshots)?  Or is it something else?

One thing I did notice is that pretty much all the VMs are being backed up using Saved State rather than Online Backup.  I am not sure why this is.  They used to always use Online Backup.  Could that be causing issues?

Any thoughts or advice would be helpful.

Thank you.

I see many of these post all over google and none with any luck of solutions, so I may be shooting in the dark. Any assistance is much appreciated in advance.

I have several VMs from different 2012 R2 hosts being backed up with DPM 2012 R2. The VMs are Win 2008 R2.

Most of the VMs allow you to dig into the VHDx files without issue. A few of them give DPM Error ID 958 (0x80990F4E).

Hello,

I'm having an issue when trying to backup to tape a Hyper-V guest VM residing on a Server 2012 R2 host by using DPM 2010 running on a Windows Server 2012( not R2) host. I am able to install the agent on the Hyper-V host server but when trying to add it to a protection group DPM displays "Offline\Hyper-V Name." When the backup runs it fails and gives no specifics. As far as I can tell, no event errors are created on the Hyper-V server or either of the host servers. The SCSI controller is set up in the guest VM and the Backup volume checkpoint is enabled.

If I install an agent on the guest VM itself instead of on the host server I can backup with no issues.

Does anyone have any idea why DPM reads the Hyper-V as "Offline\Hyper-V Name" or why I can not backup from the DPM agent installed on the host server?

We have both standard and enterprise DPM licenses available.

Any help is appreciated! 

Hi folks,

I've just setup a DPM 2012 R2 server on a Windows 2012 R2 server in order to replace our DPM2010 server!

Among the protected servers I need to backup, I've got a Hyper-v 2008 R2 failovercluster with 2 nodes (HYPER-A and HYPER-B servers)

I would like to protect each node with a Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) Backup.

In the protection group dedicated for BMR backup, I'm able to check the BMR option for the HYPER-B server Under system Protection but for the other server hyperv-A, I don't see any selection possible  for System Protection (neither for HyperV-> Initial Store)

AS you can see on the screenshot, BMR is not available for hyperv-A ?

How do you explain this?

Is there a particular action to do?

Thanks for the feedback

PS: HYPERV-A server is the current owner of the Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)

Hi

I have a DPM 2012 R2 server which is backing up a Virtual Machine. (Hyper-V Host based backup)

The Virtual machine is Windows 2012 R2 and has Exchange 2013 installed.

There is also an in guest Exchange databases backup performed by Evault. 

The issue I am facing is as part of the DPM VM backup it is truncating some of the exchange logs which causes the in guest  Evault exchange backup to fail as it doesn't have the full set of logs to work from.

I can see event logs within the VM being logged with log file being deleted as part of the dpm vm backup:

Event 224 ESE, Information Store - Exch2013Db01 (7204) Exch2013Db01: Deleting log files L:\ExchangeLogs\Exchdb01Logs\E00000E6E5C.log to L:\ExchangeLogs\Exchdb01Logs\E00000E6EB9.log

Question: How can I disable / stop a DPM VM based backup truncating exchange logs?

There are some referances on the internet to 2008 guests and creating and configuring registry settings which do not work for 2012 r2 VMs. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/8fa24259-e1bb-4cb0-b831-d42e1a720fdc/how-to-avoid-exchange-server-logs-truncation-when-hyperv-guest-os-gets-backed-up?forum=winserverhyperv

Thanks

John.

Hi,

I need to add the new VM added to my primary DPM server on my secondary DPM.

When I clic on the new VM already backed up on the primary DPM, I get the following error :

"DPM was unable to get the list of data sources on *****.Cluster.mydomain.local that are protected by the primary DPM Server.

Make sure that myprimarydpm.mydomain.local is protecting the the data sources for which you want to set this DPM server as the secondary server. If the problem persists, restart the DPMWriter service on myprimarydpm.mydomain.local.

ID: 33119"

Any idea ?

Bruno Capron - Administrateur systèmes & réseaux Microsoft MCSE/MCSA 2003 - MCITP-EA 2008

Hi,

I am wondering if it would be possible to turn on hyper-v replica on a virtual DPM 2012 R2 running as a vm in hyper-v (separate standalone hyper-v host).

I am having issues using a secondary DPM to backup the primary DPM server and thought possibly i could just replicate the entire primary DPM server to the DR site.

I believe it would be technically possible, but am wondering about the stability and possible corruptions when replicating a 60+TB DPM server.

Any thoughts?

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights

I have 2 DPM servers, both latest updates 2012 r2

They are set up as primary and secondary.

They are set up to protect live migration between hyper-v clusters.  They are also protecting physicals servers with agents. All this is working perfectly.

Problem is on the secondary server, when i select datasources to protect from the primary, it will take hours before im able to select anything. Earlier i have opened the console in the morning, and come back later in the day and added what ever needed changing. 

But now i have to reorganise on the secondary server and it is killing me.

It is not only slow when you refresh the datasources, it is slow everytime you open the protection group wizard. Listing the Primary server itself  from the secondary is instant, only listing the primarys protected sources is slow.

On the primary server the listing of protected sources  is instant everytime.

There has to be something wrong to make it this slow? I cant find anything wrong, and there are no errors.

Hello,

I just installed the "Microsoft Azure Backup Server" (I'm not sure if I'm in the right group...) for a backup of some Hyper-V client servers (4).

3 of the servers seem to work (replica was created and staus is OK) but one server isn't working. The issue startes creating the replica fails with the Message:

----
The VSS application writer or the VSS provider is in a bad state. Either it was already in a bad state or it entered a bad state during the current operation. (ID 30111 Details: VssError:The writer experienced a non-transient error.  If the backup process is retried,
the error is likely to reoccur.
 (0x800423F4))
---

The server is a Small Business Server (Windows Server Standard FE, Service Pack 2).

Thanks for any help...

Hello all,

Environment Information

DPM Console 4.2.1417.0

VMM Console 3.2.8169.0 (on DPM and VMM servers)

Stand-alone Hyper-V Servers managed by VMM.

Azure Client installed for Replication management and failover

We have a DPM server and a VMM environment with multiple standalone hyper-V servers that replicate their guests.  We use Azure to manage VMM and Hyper-V replication for failover purposes.  After setting up the environment and re-configuring DPM I noticed that it detects the guests as being on the replica servers and is backing them up from there.

Is this expected and normal?

I can successfully recover files from this scenario, but could not find any documentation that indicates this is how it works. 

Hi,

I am getting below error while taking backup of a VM since many days

Event logs of agent shows "VSS service shutdown due to idle time out"

DPM Version : 4.2.1417

I tried installing Hotfix KB2966407 but I get error "The update is not applicable to your computer"

Any help would be much appreciated

Regards,

Pramodh.

Hi,

I have following setup:

- Backup System: System Center 2012 R2 DPM installed as VM

I have two questions:

1) I want to protect a VM that happens to be on the same host with DPM, is it possible to do this kind of backup? the storage pool composed of vhdx using DAS.

2) I checked the document online about host/guest level backup, I installed the DPM agent on the host machine but I only want to backup particular VM on that machine, by definition it should be included in host level backup, but I only want to backup entire information about specific VM (related: VM configuration file, virtual hard drive(s), etc), is it possible to do this?

Thanks in advance,

JL.

Hello,

I am trying to backup a VM on a Windows 2012 cluster, I keep getting the below error:

DPM encountered an error while performing an operation for \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\CSV{de67579e-7ab9-4cf9-bb65-a35209fa8db6}\Server\Server.vhd on Host (ID 2033 Details: Incorrect function (0x80070001))

This server has been backing up fine for a long time, it started to fail on 25/09/2016.  There are other servers on the same CSV that are backing up fine.  I have tried to run a chkdsk on the server, it came back with no errors.

The affect server is a Windows 2012 Standard server.

I have also removed the server from the protection group and re-added, but the same error is displayed after a little while consistency checking.

Any help would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Sean Buckle

We are experiencing resets of the uptime counter in the Hyper-V Manager when backups are taken by the DPM (r2)

The VMs that suffer from the issue are all on a new R2 cluster that uses another SOFS cluster via SMB for all VM disks. 
All requirements for online backup should be in place, and all servers run fine while being backed up. When backing up the servers do create a new checkpoint, but as i understand this is the correct behavior when using DPM R2 on a Server 2012 R2 cluster.

Before installing the SMB share VSS role, and upgrading Integration services on some VMs, only Offline backup was an option, but after correcting these issues DPM allows online backup - but uptimes are still being reset.

No servers are entering saved state or otherwise being reset while backed up. Event logs show no errors regarding to "hot" backup, and the guest OS' show correct uptime when checked . 

Is the resetting uptime a sign that i still have issues with online backup, even if everything seems correct? And if not, how do i avoid the uptime being reset. I know that its not technically even the correct uptime, and even resets from migrations, but still..