Ditto from Dana on keeping this DPM conversation going. I am under big pressure from my CIO to convert to DPM to cut backup costs - as it is covered under our current ALA. One of our VARs is really pushing DPM. I have worked with them for several years and they do a very good job for me on all things MS related. I am keeping an open mind, but there are caveats that require deep digging depending on your environment and expectations.
Quick comments based on my site experience FWIW and just starting to look at DPM in detail. If interested, read on. We have used COMMVAULT for many years, including EXCHANGE backups. Keep in mind that many other vendors offer excellent support - I am just commenting on CV. There is a yearly cost for this product, but has been well worth it to me, as we have had to do some strange recoveries (including EXCHANGE data) from time to time, and never lost any data within our recovery window. We monitor backup logs closely, and anytime we have an error or issue CV support jumped on this and resolved/adjusted our configurations. We have a disk storage array system dedicated to our backups and were running out of space. For my specific site, the cost of upgrading the storage array was significant, so we installed CV DEDUPE and now have enough space to meet our recovery window. We found about an 80% or more backup storage space savings so did not need to do an expensive upgrade to our backup storage array hardware. Again, most mainline backup vendors have this option as well. Reviewing these numbers with our MS VAR, I was told that DPM may not be as DEDUPE efficient, we likely need upgrade our storage array, but this would be a cost savings over the longer term since we would not need to pay our yearly CV support maintenance. I am not to the point of running the numbers yet, but it is tough to factor in the variable of quality product support, and for backup/restore I don't want any issues. At my site, no one is concerned about cost cutting until after the fact when there is an issue. Again, I am keeping an open mind, but backup/restore is critical at my site. Just my quick thoughts and hoping others looking into DPM may have comments. Thank you Dana From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David McSpadden Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 3:03 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Exchange] DAG & DPM I would like to follow this convo as well. I continue to get DPM errors but no real reason that I can figure? From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Daniel Chenault Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 3:55 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [Exchange] DAG & DPM I inherited this setup and am just trying to make heads or tails of the continuing problems (mostly "replica out of sync"). How does DPM handle the log files in a DAG? Does it only backup the active DB and... then what? I've read two books thus far on DPM and Exchange and neither went into the actual workings under the hood; mostly screen shots of how to set this or that up. Had a situation where a backup kept failing for no good reason I could see. Had to failover the DB to it's partner (unrelated) and all of a sudden the logs cleared. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are property of Indiana Members Credit Union, are confidential, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom this e-mail is addressed. If you are not one of the named recipient(s) or otherwise have reason to believe that you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and delete this message immediately from your computer. Any other use, retention, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. Please consider the environment before printing this email.
