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Streamlining offsite protection of data

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This scenario provides the basic configuration and steps necessary to implement offsite protection in Azure using System Center 2012.

You can see an example of a completed cross-component solution at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=262220.

System Center 2012 components and other products, features, and roles

You can build the solution to this scenario using the following products:

  • System Center 2012 SP1 – DPM
  • Microsoft Azure Backup service

Scenario description

Bob, the backup administrator at Contoso Hosting Solutions, is responsible for the management of the DPM servers and other backup related infrastructure like storage, disks, tapes etc. His tasks include:

  • Agent management: deployment, servicing and troubleshooting
  • Backup and recovery related tasks
  • Backup policy configuration, any associated exceptions or escalations and manual tasks
  • Backup job monitoring, tracking alerts and generating reports regarding overall backup or recovery related resource utilization, deeper BCDR related success or failure reports
  • Recovery – perform recovery, escalations and troubleshoot failed recoveries.
  • Manage backup infrastructure: including patching of DPM servers, DPM’s storage disks, scaling up of DPM servers.

Bob uses the centralized SCOM console and also uses the DPM console for his backup and recovery configuration tasks. He centrally tracks and manages the health of backups spread across various DPM servers in his domain from within the SCOM console. He uses the individual DPM server console for configuration tasks including protection group creation, policy configuration, agent servicing, DPM server and storage configuration.

He has read reviews and has been asked by his IT manager & IT architect to evaluate and appropriately adopt the new cloud-backup capabilities available in System Center 2012 SP1 - DPM. Contoso has, so far, been using a range of solutions (secondary disk, tape, secondary backup server) for backing up data to offsite locations. Bob is excited about reducing their overall offsite backup total cost of ownership (TCO) by using Microsoft Azure.

The aim is for Bob to be able to perform the above mentioned backup and recovery tasks for cloud backup in addition to his existing on-premise backup, recovery tasks. This includes management of the infrastructure components needed to enable cloud-backup as well as its associated configuration, monitoring, reporting and troubleshooting.

Solution description

To implement the solution, Bob first subscribes to the Microsoft Azure Backup for DPM service and creates an account for the organization. This can be done with the click of a button from inside the DPM Administrator Console.

Next he modifies the protection groups that he wants to add online protection for through the Modify Protection Group wizard.

In this way, he seamlessly extends the protection for his data to the cloud platform.

A few weeks later, when some file servers go down, Bob receives a ticket to recover the servers. He decides to test the recovery from the online replica. He starts the Recovery wizard from within the DPM Administrator Console and discovers that the recovery process is similar to the process he would have used to recover from a local replica.

How does this solution fit into your IT strategy?

Microsoft’s cloud strategy is hosted on the Private Cloud Solution Hub where architectural guidance is located. The strategy describes how a private cloud enables organizations to deliver information technology as services by providing a pool of computing resources delivered as a standard set of capabilities that are specified, designed, and managed based on requirements defined by a private organization.

How do you prepare System Center for this solution?

In order to prepare your environment for this solution, you should review guidance in the System Center 2012 Integration Guide hosted on the Microsoft TechNet wiki at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/13188.system-center-2012-integration-guide.aspx. There you can review community information of each System Center component in its role as a programmable platform to be used for the Microsoft Private Cloud.  It is intended to provide an abstraction layer that guides partners and customers on their decision process for methods to build automated solutions across System Center components and between System Center and other systems.

Once you have the System Center 2012 components and other requirements met, you’re ready to test the solution.

How to accomplish this solution

Install the Microsoft Azure Backup agent and subscribe to the service from within the DPM Administrator Console

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=282019.

Add Microsoft Azure Backup to existing protection groups

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=282020.

How can you customize or extend this solution?