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

Hello!

I create PG of Hyper-V cluster. Have a few VM with SUSE12. When I try to create replica of SUSE VM in event viewer I see error that VSS provider is in a bad state.

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))

Can the DMP in 2016 to do online backup of a VM on Suse 12? I found a similar article, but that's about 2012 R2. DPM 2012R2 supports online backup SUSE 11SP3.

SUSE 11SP4 online backup is performed, and SUSE 12 is not performed. 

I will be glad of any help

Hi, 

Good day! 

Background: 

I have 2 file servers setup as a clustered.  We setup a shared storage drive for the file servers.   

When server A becomes active, it will have C drive and G drive while server B will only have C drive. 

Once I moved the cluster role to server B,  B will then have C drive and G drive while server A have just C drive.  

Both file servers are installed with DPM agent and backup using DPM.  

We configured DPM to group both server A and server B under the same protection group.  

Issue:  

While server A act as active file server (holding file cluster role), DPM has no problem back up the server.  But DPM always failed to backup server B which is passive. 

While server B act as active file server, DPM will then OK to backup server with no issue but will fail on server A.  

So looks like DPM only manage to backup active file server that in the cluster.  

is there anyway that I could overcome this?  

Hi all, I have a "True or False" question. If I have a six node Hyper-v 2012R2 cluster using a NetApp SMB share, defined in VMM, for virtual machine .vhdx file storage, will I be able to back up all of my virtual machines using a virtualized DPM2012R2 server?? I read where you have to install a DPM agent on the hyper-v nodes AND the smb file server. You can't install that agent on the NetApp.

One other question is: Can I define a DPM storage pool on a Netapp share if I define the share in VMM and then use VMM to create a disk for the DPM server on that share? 

Any feedback appreciated. Thanks.

http://flemmingriis.com/dpm-2012-r2-windows-server-2012-r2-disable-odx/ and the issue persists.

Specifically, the error is: Event 1 VDS Basic Provider, Unexpected failure. Error code: 48F@01000003.

These occur several times then the CSV goes offline and all the VM's crash. Needless to say, this is catastrophic and a bullet proof solution needs to be found.

I'd appreciate any help :)

We have a 2012 R2 Hyper-V cluster and we are using DPM 2012 R2 UR8 to backup our VMs.  We just updated 3 VMs from Linux Fedora 19 to Fedora 23 and now after updating to Fedora 23 when the VM backups run, they are failing with this error in DPM: "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 VSS writer "Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer" also goes to a failed state and has a last error of "Non-retryable error"

In the Windows Application Event log this is the error: "A VSS writer has rejected an event with error 0x800423f4, The writer experienced a non-transient error.  If the backup process is retried, the error is likely to reoccur.  Changes that the writer made to the writer components while handling the event will not be available to the requester. Check the event log for related events from the application hosting the VSS writer.

Operation:
   PrepareForSnapshot Event

Context:
   Execution Context: Writer
   Writer Class Id: {66841cd4-6ded-4f4b-8f17-fd23f8ddc3de}
   Writer Name: Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer
   Writer Instance ID: {739f04ef-2257-4f4a-b6ba-a4cf451b77bf}
   Command Line: C:\Windows\system32\vmms.exe
   Process ID: 24236

I've reset the VSS writer but that hasn't fixed it.  I have also removed it from DPM and re-added it with no luck.

Does DPM 2012 R2 UR8 support this kind of backup with Linux Fedora 23?

Any ideas how to make this work?

Hi,

we´re evaluating Hyper-V and DPM at the moment. The test setup is as follows:

- 1 FC SAN, created various Volumes, added to the Hyper-V Cluster as CSVs

- 3 Hyper-V Hosts running as a Hyper-V Cluster with FC connection to the SAN

- 1 Physical DPM Server with local Backup storage and also FC connection to the SAN

As I understand, DPM installs the DPM Agent on the 3 Hyper-V Hosts. Within DPM I create a Protection group, selecting the Cluster itself and the VMs it should back up. The Backup process then connects via LAN to the DPM Agents on the Hosts and pulls the Data for the backups from the CSVs.

Now since the DPM also has a FC connection to the SAN, I wonder if I could utilize that one somehow. This will be a huge performance boost (SAN is 8GBit/s, LAN is only 2GBit/s in a Team). I may be completely off with that. But could I just join the DPM Server to the Hyper-V Cluster also, so it has access to the CSVs? DPM will not be used to place VMs of course. But with direct access to the CSVs, would it pull the Data directly from the CSVs via FC?

Or is this idea just plain stupid and it might work, but will break things when going into production? I just wonder if I could utilize that FC connection from the DPM Server to the SAN in some way to speed up backups and restore operations.

Any input to this topic is appreciated. Thanks in advance :-)

When we attempt to restore a Server 2016/RCT Virtual Machine either to it's original location, or to another Hyper-V host, the restore fails right at the end with one of the following error messages:

- An unexpected error occurred while the job was running. (ID 104 Details: Unknown error (0x80041024)
- An unexpected error occurred while the job was running. (ID 104 Details: Unknown error (0x80041008)
- The protection agent on xxx was temporarily unable to respond because it was in an unexpected state. (ID 60 Details: Internal error code: 0x809909B0)

The files are copied to the intended destination and we can manually import them into Hyper-V successfully.


This event is recorded on the Hyper-V target host around the time of the restore:

Faulting application name: DPMRA.exe, version: 5.0.247.0, time stamp: 0x57f281ee
Faulting module name: MSVCR110.dll, version: 11.0.51106.1, time stamp: 0x5098826e
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000003c3b9
Faulting process id: 0xb34
Faulting application start time: 0x01d23a6376a41257
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin\DPMRA.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\MSVCR110.dll
Report Id: 24d280b4-dcb0-40ed-b897-c455f10eb87a
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 


Extra information:

- Our DPM server was originally built on Server 2012 R2. DPM 2012 R2 was initially installed. 
- It was recently upgraded to DPM 2016 and UR1 was installed.
- The DPM host OS has not yet been upgraded - is this necessary to get RCT VM restore working??
- All protection agents are up-to-date
- We can recover VMs (non RCT marked) that have been backed up from our 2012 R2 and 2012 Hyper-V hosts to all Hyper-V hosts, including the Server 2016 ones without issue.

Hi,

I am unable to restore a Linux VM to its original instance, restoration goes till the end and fails with below error:

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))

And i see below event in Hyper-V host:

Operation:
   PostRestore Event

Context:
   Execution Context: Writer
   Writer Class Id: {66841cd4-6ded-4f4b-8f17-fd23f8ddc3de}
   Writer Name: Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer
   Writer Instance ID: {05a0c44b-4065-4bce-8be3-615e8ba362ea}
   Command Line: C:\Windows\system32\vmms.exe

Please help

DPM 2016 on physical Windows 2016 server

Trying to add a virtual machine guest on a 2012 R2 cluster.  None of the VMs in the cluster are selectable. The VMs that I installed agents on do list as their own computers as well, and I could make back ups from inside the guest, but i cannot back them up through the HyperV Host cluster listing.

I have a Hyper V cluster with guest VMs. 

All systems are joined to the same domain.  All systems are Windows server 2012 r2.

With an agent installed on the guest VM, I can successfully backup the VM including BMR and system state.

However, when I try to backup at the host level, which is a requirement for us, it fails.  I have hit a wall in the troubleshooting.  Can I get ideas of where to look next?

The hyper v vss writer looks good.  Integration services are good.  Agents are good, with windows server backup feature installed.

Good day

I'm running DPM 2012R2 as a POC in my environment. So far it's going great I can do the basics such as deploy agents, backup and restore files and folders and do complete BMR recoveries.

I'm having an issue backing up my hyper-V 2012 R2 cluster VMs. I've installed the agent on each host but I do not see the VMs underneath each host when I go to the Protection workspace to set up a new Protection group. All I see underneath a Hyper-V host is All Shares, All Volumes, System component and Hyper-V Host component. DPM does not list the virtual servers running on that particular host. What am I missing here?

It's DPM 2012R2; my Hyper-V test cluster is 2012 R2 using CSV disks running on a NetApp storage array.

Any pointers are appreciated.

Hi,

we are dealing with the persisting error during backup jobs on our cluster. Originally, we had two node Hyper-V 2012 R2 cluster, SC VMM 2012 R2 and DPM 2012 R2 - this was a fully functional setup and we were enjoying our periodically successful backups. A month ago, we´ve decided to upgrade to the latest. So firstly, we´ve upgraded DPM to 2016 (but still sitting on 2012 R2 OS), then VMM to 2016 (and also underlying OS to 2016), a then we´ve performed rolling cluster update.

Now, all backup tasks against clustered VMs fails (even the first synchronization). Backup job fails and in DPM console shows:

DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details: VssError:The shadow copy provider timed out while flushing data to the volume being shadow copied. This is probably due to excessive activity on the volume. Try again later when the volume is not being used so heavily. (0x80042313)).

Both nodes show error 12297 repeatedly. Details of each error are:

Afternoon all,

I'm looking to deploy Server2016 Nano Servers as HyperV hosts and have long used DPM as our primary backup program. I'm rather surprised to see that DPM 2016 does not support Server2016 Nano server. I know other vendors do support it - Veeam for example in their new 9.5 release - but would rather stick with DPM if I can...

I know both products are new, is there confirmed plans to support Nano server? a rough timeframe? Obviously these things are subject to change but at least the acknowledgement of support being incoming could help me stop jumping ship for a competitor.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks

Joe.

Hello,

We are using DMP2012 R2 and Hyper-V(Version: 6.3.9600.16384) of Server 2012R2. And some VMs throught Host-Level backups on different Hypver-V Hosts.

Recently I found a wired issue happens on my Jobs. Details see the attached picture.

And if I restart the "Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service"service (this service looks ok-running) on each Hyper-V hosts and then "Perform Consistency Check..." again for each jobs, they work again(Protection Status becames OK).  This issue happened twice in one month.  So hopes someoen can help here.  Thanks, Andy

Dear all,

Need your precius help in order to solved an issue I have when backuing up an SCCM + SQL server VM.

All the rest of Guest machines backup sucessfully.

Background info:

Cluster Hyperv 2008 r2 4Nodes

DPM (Phisical) 2012

SCCM Guest VM

Type of backup : VM backup + SQL DBs

SQL backup works great

VM backup produce the attaced errors

Thanks in advance foryour kindly help !!!

DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details: VssError:The writer experienced a transient error.  If the backup process is retried,
the error may not reoccur.
 (0x800423F3))


Affected area:	\Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\GVASCCM02-New
Occurred since:	22/11/2012 18:11:33
Description:	The replica of Microsoft Hyper-V \Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\GVASCCM02-New on SCVMM GVASCCM02-New Resources.GVAHYPERV00.EUROPE.loc is inconsistent with the protected data source. All protection activities for data source will fail until the replica is synchronized with consistency check. You can recover data from existing recovery points, but new recovery points cannot be created until the replica is consistent.

For SharePoint farm, recovery points will continue getting created with the databases that are consistent. To backup inconsistent databases, run a consistency check on the farm. (ID 3106)
	DPM encountered a retryable VSS error. (ID 30112 Details: VssError:The writer experienced a transient error.  If the backup process is retried,
the error may not reoccur.
 (0x800423F3))
	More information
Recommended action:	Check the Application Event Log on GVAHYPERV04.EUROPE.loc for the cause of the failure. Fix the cause and retry the operation.
For more information on this error, go to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=132612.
	Synchronize with consistency check.
	Run a synchronization job with consistency check...
Resolution:	To dismiss the alert, click below
	Inactivate

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 have few linux VMs hosted on server 2012 R2 hyper-v, which I backup using DPM 2012 R2. Backups are running fine but the problem is whenever DPM starts backing up the Linux VM, hyper-v saves that vm and restore it again in a few minutes.

Saving a running VM disconnects applications that VM is serving. I have installed latest version of "Linux Integration Services" and now I can see that DPM does shows that VM is 'Online' which was 'offline' previously but still whenever I fire a backup on DPM it saves my VM and starts backup.

Is it possible to backup Linux VM without save/restore process?

Regards,

Dhananjay

Hi,

I have few linux VMs hosted on server 2012 R2 hyper-v, which I backup using DPM 2012 R2. Backups are running fine but the problem is whenever DPM starts backing up the Linux VM, hyper-v saves that vm and restore it again in a few minutes.

Saving a running VM disconnects applications that VM is serving. I have installed latest version of "Linux Integration Services" and now I can see that DPM does shows that VM is 'Online' which was 'offline' previously but still whenever I fire a backup on DPM it saves my VM and starts backup.

Is it possible to backup Linux VM without save/restore process?

Regards,

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?