Hello everyone. We are now deploying DPM 2012 R2 as backup solution for our Hyper-V infrastructure. I've read an article about performing online VM backup using DPM - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh757970.aspx . I'm a bit frustrated about 2 requirements for performing online backup:

 - "There should be no dynamic disks on the virtual machine."

It means basic \ dynamic disks inside VM, not the fixed\dynamic VHD(X), am I right?

- "The virtual machine must be running, and if the virtual machine is in a cluster the cluster resource group should be online. A Shadow Storage assignment of a volume inside the virtual machine mustnt be explicitly set to a different volume other than itself."

- "The VSS storage assigment for the volumes shouldnt be modified."

We have a file server, based on 2012 R2 with 3 VHDX mapped to it. First VHDX - OS volume, second - data volume, third - VSS volume for storing from VHDX#2. Does it mean that this scheme is not supported and I need to have VSS copy of my data on the second VHDX?  It is very bad :(.

Our VM is running on Hyper-V cluster (2012 R2).

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

First I need to point out that the restriction are due to the Windows Hyper-V Writer and Integration components installed in the guest.  DPM is simply a backup requestor and the state of the backup is determined by the Hyper-v VSS writer, not DPM. 

The Dynamic disk is referring to the disk inside the guest being a dynamic disk versus a basic disk.  So all disks inside the guest as seen by Windows disk management should be basic or GPT and not Dynamic.

Correct, the VSS Shadow Storage used for snapshots but be configured to use the same volume being snapshotted, so yes, you can use vssadmin.exe list shadowstorage command to see how it's currently configured. 

There were significant changes in Windows and DPM 2012 R2 UR3 or later that helps perform reliable backups, so I would do some additional testing after making sure the below have been installed and the DPM agents updated on the cluster nodes:

KB 2920151-Recommended hotfixes and updates for Windows Server 2012 R2-based failover clusters

KB 3009516-Update Rollup 4 for System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager

Contents of shadow copy set ID: {8b74c3a5-c6f8-4be3-906c-c045956b5df0}
   Contained 1 shadow copies at creation time: 1/19/2015 11:34:43 PM
      Shadow Copy ID: {610f9c9b-43cd-40b4-ab55-fd5f633bd766}
         Original Volume: (H:)\\?\Volume{bcb683ad-c0b9-48e9-8a04-66831dcbb1df}\
         Shadow Copy Volume: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy1535
         Originating Machine: SRV-TWFILE-07
         Service Machine: SRV-TWFILE-07
         Provider: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
         Type: ClientAccessible
         Attributes: Persistent, Client-accessible, No auto release, No writers, Differential

What should I see in VSS Admin? I get such output ( take one for  Instance):

Hi,

Inside the guest, run vssadmin list shadowstorage - you should output similar to the following - just make sure the shadow copy storage volume is the same as the volume:

C:\>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2013 Microsoft Corp.

Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{b0ff77d5-1c68-11e2-be82-2c768ae16487}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{b0ff77d5-1c68-11e2-be82-2c768ae16487}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.20 GB (3%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.67 GB (4%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 9.67 GB (15%)