Does DPM 2012 support hardware encryption from a tape library LTO6 ?

We have a tape Library TS3200 from IBM with 2 head LTO 6. Will it be supported to use both head at the same time?

We have activated the IBM encryption key Inside the Library to do encryption.

hi,

I am taking short term protection using tape for file server. and retention period is 2 weeks. so it is weekly full backup (which is defined in short term protection)

i can see that after 7 days it is taking new tape for full backup and for incremental backup.

i want to minimize usage of tapes. how can i do that? since a lots of space is wasted on tape.

--joseph

Hi,

I must implement a new backup infrastructure. On the central location I will backup the servers with DPM2012 sp1 (Dell PowerEdge R720xd). On a co location I have another Windows 2012 server (PowerEdge R720xd). The central DPM1 server use the server from the co location as storage server (SMB) for long term backup jobs.

On the co location I have a Dell PowerVault ML6000 tape robot connected to the location server with FC. (I can not place the tape robot in the central location (space problem)).

 Can someone help me with my questions?

1: If I connect the tape robot with the server on the co location can i use it from the central DPM server?

2: Is there anyone who knows a way to communicate with the tape robot with iSCSI (can i buy something)

3: Is it smart to install DPM either on the server on the co location.

Thanks

DPM 2012 Update Rollup 3 with 2x HP LTO5 drives in a Quantum i500 library, FC connected.

I have attached a screenshot showing the timing of tape backups involving SQL databases.

Notice that irrespective of size, the total time taken is at least 3 or 4 minutes.  I have highlighted three examples where there is a trival amount of data involved (eg 3MB), yet DPM still spends over 4 minutes writing it to tape.

I'm starting to wonder whether DPM has a bug and is rewinding the tape after each database.

The same system backs up exchange databases (admittedly much larger at 500GB+ each) and streams at 80 to 120MB/s so raw performance isn't a problem.

The problem appears most noticeable on SQL databases, since many databases (master, model etc) are very small.

The actual databases all end up on the same two tapes (one tape per drive).

Any ideas?

Hello,

I am using DPM 2010 i got the offsite backup tape from which i need to recover some data.

when i install the tape on DPM it shows it as "Suspect" and i am not able to retrieve data from it.

Why would DPM shows the tape as suspect?

Is there any third party tool which can help retrieving data from tapes?

Regards,

Maqsood

Maqsood Mohammed Senior Systems Engineer MCITP-Enterprise Admin & ITILv3 Foundation Certified

I'm trying to recover a Hyper-V VM from tape using DPM 2012 R2 however when I click the link to view the tape list only one tape is shown and the library is listed as Offline. I'm using DPM with a superloader tape library containing 8 slots, each with a tape and DPM has had exclusive use of this. I don't understand why only one tape is listed. Should the other tapes also be listed? Why might it be listed as offline when it has a status of 'Tape available' in Management> Libraries?

The text next to it says 'All tapes offline', is this related? Why is this?

For the past couple of days I have been getting the following alert on my tape backups:

Cannot verify tape data.

Hi

We have a Protection Group with 160 members currently attached to it. The group has the following customized Recovery Points:-

- 1 recovery point every 1 day for the last 2 weeks, 1 recovery point every 1 month for the last 60 months and 1 recovery point every year for the last 5 years.

The schedule is as follows:-

- Every Day at 01:00, Every Month on First Day at 01:00 and Every 12 Months on 01 January at 01:00.

The daily tape backups are working fine without issue but neither the Monthly or Yearly backups are being attempted. We have checked the monthly backups for this issue for the last few months and are unable to see any evidence of the Monthly schedule even running? This means that we are having to manually label the Daily tapes once a month as Monthly tapes but they will then stay on the Reports for the next 5 years as DPM will constantly request these tapes back.

Are you able to help with this matter?

Not that we really want to do this but if we removed the group completely and re-create it would this cause problems with our restore points?

Every once in a while, my DPM 2010 tape labels appear as "Imported."  I have only used this one DPM server and it has always been DPM 2010, so no version/system migrations.  One dat the tape will labeled normally and the next, it seems like DPM forgot about the tape.  Often times when I attempt to view the contents of the tapes, I am forced to recatalog the tape.  The tapes and jobs on the tapes are nowhere close to being expired.

This is a HUGE problem when I need to restore an Exchange mailbox from a tape, as individual mailboxes can not be restored from "Imported" tapes.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I am trying to script a FAST INVENTORY for our DPM 2012 server using the documented powershell command

    PS C:\>$DPMLib = Get-DPMLibrary -DPMServerName "TestingServer"
    Start-DPMLibraryInventory -DPMLibrary $DPMLib -FastInventory

I get the following error on our "Firestreamer Media Changer-2" library

Start-DPMLibraryInventory : Cannot convert 'System.Object[]' to the type 'Micro
soft.Internal.EnterpriseStorage.Dls.UI.ObjectModel.LibraryManagement.Library' r
equired by parameter 'DPMLibrary'. Specified method is not supported.
At line:1 char:38
+ Start-DPMLibraryInventory -DPMLibrary <<<<  $DPMLib -FastInventory
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Start-DPMLibraryInventory]
   , ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotConvertArgument,Microsoft.Internal.Enterpr
   iseStorage.Dls.UI.Cmdlet.StartInventory

Once this is fixed I would like to run the Fast Inventory from a .bat file and then schedule it?
I am unable to do this task as the DPM2012 Management Shell does not appear to be associated with the standard powershell

Thx,
Joe

Thx, Joe

Hi all,

I know this has been asked before and I've looked at the other articles but still with no resolution on my end.

My configuration is: Dell PowerVault LTO5-140HH Single Stand Alone tape drive (upgraded firmware and drivers ltotape.sys ver 6.0.6002.22167) using Dell Ultrium LTO5 tapes. My DPM server is running on Server 2008 STD SP2. Im using DPM 2012 ver 4.0.1920.0 fully updated.

My problem is that DPM is only writing 1.43tb of data then stops and waits for another tape, I would like it to compress the data (data being backed up is SQL, Hyper-V VM's, Exchange, system states) and only use one tape. All of my protection groups have the compress data option selected but when I use mytape.exe to view the drive info it shows that Hardware Data Compression is: Disabled, it also shows that Supports Hardware Data Compression is: TRUE.

I've gone and tried, using mytape.exe, to set the hardware data compression to enabled, but when the backup job begins and I check, it is back to disabled again. I turned on the vebose logging and saw this

<MTASetMedia>
 VERBOSE     <StorageXml>
     <StorageType xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/dls/MediaManager/StorageXMLSchema.xsd">Tape</StorageType>
      <TapeInfo DriveAccessPath="\\.\Tape2147483646" PhysicalBlockSize="65536"HWCompression="false" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/dls/MediaManager/StorageXMLSchema.xsd" />
    </StorageXml>
   </MTASetMedia>

for some reason the HWCompression is false.

I've read that DPM just sends a command to the tape drive for compression, and i'm pretty sure my tape drive supports but why isn't it enabling? So far I'm at a loss on what to try next. Is it my data I'm backing up not compressable and that's why it wanting two tapes instead of one?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance

We have a pair of tapes that we need to recover some files from. Sadly they are outside of our retention range, which was an oversight with setup and I have fixed that. But I mark the tapes as free then unmark them as free and select re catalog tapes. It worked on one tape and showed how much data is written to tape, the second tape is re catalogs it but does not show how much data is written to tape. The when I go to the recovery tab and select external DPM tapes I cannot drill down at very far at all into what I need and I am pretty sure the files I need are on the tape that is not showing how much data is written. I have tried running the re catalog again with no luck. Any ideas?

Hello all,

is it planned to support other tape libraries in future? For example an overland neo s400 with lto5 drives?

Is there a Roadmap or some kind of Workaround to use such tape libraries with dpm?

Kinds regards

Hi Guys,

We have migrated from Symantec Backup Exec to System center data protection manager 2012 and I have set up a System Centre 2012 DPM and short term backup on the disk and long term on the tape. I do understand that when DPM backsup  to disk it only copies changes blocks but on the tape drive does it copy the whole backup like if I have 20 VMS on DPM so does it backup 20 whole VMs on the tape drive every night? I am sure there must be a better way to do it.

Hi,

We are experiencing the following issues with our DPM backup.

The backups to tape are failing on a daily basis. Every time the backup fails, the tape drive has disappeared from DPM (but not from the device manager). After performing a Rescan in DPM, the drive reappears and backups can be resumed. Sometimes two tape libraries are detected (one online and the other offline) after the rescan. In that case a second rescan is required.

Our setup:

• DPM 2012 R2 (same problem in DPM2012 SP1)
• Server 2008 R2
• Tape Library: HP MSL G3
• Tape drive: HP Ultirum 4-SCSI
• Ultra320 scsi adapter

The tape library and drive have the latest available firmware and the most recent drivers are used. All available windows updates have been installed.

Powershell command Get-DPMLibrary | fl *

Id                      : ab141219-f3ec-496a-8d8d-099ade6a1140
UserFriendlyName        : Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive
Name                    : Stand-alone Drive: Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive: (Offline)
DriveCount              : 1
SlotCount               : 0
Status                  : Offline
AutoloaderLocation      : Port -1, Bus -1, Target -1, Lun -1
Type                    : StandAloneDriveTapeLibrary
SerialNumber            :
NumberOfIEPortSlots     : 0
NumberOfChangers        : 0
AutoloaderStatus        : Not Available
ScsiPort                : -1
ScsiBus                 : -1
ScsiLun                 : -1
ScsiTargetId            : -1
IsBarcodeSupported      : False
BarcodeStatus           : Not Available
IsOffline               : True
IsEnabled               : True
IsDoorUnlocked          : False
DoorStatus              : Locked
DefaultUnlockDoorPeriod : 600
ProtectionGroups        :

Id                      : 3c6dc4f8-daea-489f-91b0-e1dfd1da1701
UserFriendlyName        : Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library  (x64 based)
Name                    : Library: Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library  (x64 based): (Disabled)
DriveCount              : 1
SlotCount               : 45
Status                  : Enabled
VendorId                : Hewlett Packard
ProductId               : Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library  (x64 based)
AutoloaderLocation      : Port 3, Bus 0, Target 4, Lun 1
Type                    : TapeLibrary
SerialNumber            : DEC74704US
NumberOfIEPortSlots     : 3
NumberOfChangers        : 1
AutoloaderStatus        : Available
ScsiPort                : 3
ScsiBus                 : 0
ScsiLun                 : 1
ScsiTargetId            : 4
IsBarcodeSupported      : True
BarcodeStatus           : Available
IsOffline               : False
IsEnabled               : True
IsDoorUnlocked          : False
DoorStatus              : Locked
DefaultUnlockDoorPeriod : 600

Event logs:

Log Name:      DPM Alerts
Source:        DPM-EM
Date:          10/02/2014 8:08:00
Event ID:      3311
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic

The back up to tape job failed for the following reason: (ID: 3311)
Tape Library Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library  (x64 based) could not be contacted. All jobs for Tape Library Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library  (x64 based) will fail if the connection is not established.
 (ID: 3301)

Log Name:      DPM Alerts
Source:        DPM-EM
Date:          10/02/2014 8:11:46
Event ID:      3303
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic

Library drive Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive in Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library  (x64 based) is not functioning and library jobs may fail until the drive is repaired.  The drive is not functioning for the following reason:
 (ID: 3303)
Drive Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive was detected as not ready. (ID: 25015)
1. Check that the drive is powered on.
2. Check if the drive is being serviced. If yes, you can ignore this alert.
3. Check if the drive is connected properly.
4. In the Device Manager if the drive is not enabled or not visible, refer to your hardware manual for other troubleshooting steps.

Log Name:      DPM Alerts
Source:        DPM-EM
Date:          10/02/2014 8:11:48
Event ID:      3301
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic

Stand Alone Drive Tape Library Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive could not be contacted. All jobs for Stand Alone Drive Tape Library Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive will fail if the connection is not established.
 (ID: 3301)
Stand Alone Drive Tape Library Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-4 drive is not ready. (ID: 25014)
1. Check if the library is turned on.
2. Check for loose connections on data or power channels.
3. Make sure that the library is visible in Device Manager.
4. Check to see that the door on the library is closed
5. Refer to your hardware manual for other troubleshooting steps.

We would like to monitor the SCSI connection between the server and the tape library.Is there a way to do this?

Anyone an idea what the problem might be?

I have a new server connected with 8gb Fibre to a Dell TL2000 with an Lto5 drive(IBM LTO-5 Drive). For testing I am pulling directly from an ISCSI device that is using 3 NIC's in MPIO. I can successfully pull 230-250MBps from this Array.

However, The tape is only writing at between 50-60MBps. I can monitor the speed with the Fibre Channel utility. The queue length never exceeds 1.  Also the Nic's never exceed 25% utilization and When I create a large copy form the array I can easily exceed 80% on all of them(when I am going at 250MBps)

CPU does not exceed 5% with 8 cores remaining parked and I still have 8gb of memory free.

So why can DPM not utilize the full bandwidth to feed the LTO5 drive? I need to feed the drive at over 200 so I can get into streaming mode and avoid shoeshinning the tape.

Thanks,

Nick

I'm using the latest fully updated DPM 2012 R2 on Server 2012 R2 also fully updated. Yesterday it marked a few tapes as being offsite ready so I removed them from the tape library, did an inventory to ensure they weren't still listed as being there when they weren't and ensured that it had a tape to co-locate the backups to that night. This morning I have a lot of 'Cannot verify tape data' warnings with the event logs indicating that it was trying to use some of the tapes that I removed yesterday for verification.

Why is it trying to use tapes that aren't there? What can I do to prevent it doing this?

I have a 2008 R2 server with DPM 2010 installed on it, an IBM 3573-TL (Library FirmwareC.20 / 3.20e) with two ULT3580-TD4 fiber channel drives (Firmware C7QH). I've installed latest IBM drivers for Medium Changer and Tape Drives (IBMTape.x64_w08_6241_WHQL_Cert) and at Windows Device Manager I can see medium changer and drives in good status.

Ater installing DPM, I've added the following registry key:[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent] "RSMCompatMode"=dword:0000001d (29)

When i perform an fast inventory, DPM will only shows all Tape slots as empty slots and Idle Drives

I've tried also use win 2012 r2 with dpm 2012 R2, the same result after inventory.

I need some help in solving this issue, I'm facing with this problem for 2 weeks and becomes annoying

Thanks in advance !

Dear all,

We are running DPM 2010 with a virtual tape library "firestreamer"

Sometime for no reason we get this error on DPM ( none on firestreamer ):

DPM a rencontré une erreur critique lors d'une opération d'E/S sur la bande Travail-LT-1Jours-Copier0-00000060 (J1K38E14N1H_TR3000000023W) (code-barres - J1K38E14N1H_TR3000000023W) dans Drive Firestreamer Tape Drive (L2TD0386E7E0C13805E1118F3E806E6). (ID 30101 Détails : data error ( cyclic redundancy check) 0x80070017).

Sorry for the frenchy touch, I have just translated the famous cyclic redundancy check.

It is very anoying, We reload a new library and it works vell for a few day and suddenly ....

Cristalink says that Microsoft knows the bug and are not responsible for this matter as firestreamer have no error in log.

Best Regard Mohammad Reza Abdi