I have a windows 2012 DPM server runing DPM 2012, with rollup patch applied.  Im backing up several child servers ruuning on a windows 2008 R2 Hyperv server.  All the windows 2008 child servers backup fine using snapshot, however the 2012 server running as a child does a saved state backup, it does not have any dynmic disks.

Any ideas why?

Hi,

First, SCS DPM 2012 does not support being installed on a Windows server 2012 or protecting Server 2012 until after SCS 2012 Sp1 ships later this year.

System Center DPM 2012 is not supported running on Windows Server 2012 until we release System Center SP1 later this year.  We have had reports of DPM 2012 console crashes when navigating to the recovery tab if DPM 2012 is installed on Windows server 2012.  This issue is fixed in SP1.

If you are already in this condition,  I recommend you backup the DPMDB, rebuild the DPM server using Windows 2008 R2 install DPM 2012, then restore your current database. The process is explained in the below technet article.

Recovering DPM servers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj244606.aspx

We also do not support protecting Windows Server 2012 using SCS DPM 2012 until after SC SP1 is released.   Please do not expect any support for DPM 2012 running on Windows Server 2012, or issues while protecting data sources in Windows Server 2012.

However, with that said here are the general conditions that make a VM go into a saved state during backup.

Protecting Hyper-V machines
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh757866.aspx

Conditions when DPM fails to back up Hyper-V virtual machines in an online state

By default, System Center 2012  Data Protection Manager (DPM) performs a backup of a Hyper-V Virtual Machine (VM) in an online state. However, DPM cannot back up a Hyper-V VM in an online state, if one or more of the following conditions are true:

• Backup (Volume Snapshot) Integration Service is disabled or not installed.
• The virtual machine has one or more dynamic disks.
• The virtual machine has one or more non-NTFS based volumes.
• The virtual machine Cluster Resource Group in a cluster setup is offline.
• The virtual machine is not in a running state.
• A ShadowStorage assignment of a volume inside the virtual machine is explicitly set to a different volume other than itself.
• An App-V drive is installed on the virtual machine that creates a non-NTFS volume.

These conditions are set by the Hyper-V writer. In such a case, the VM is put in a saved state before a snapshot of host volumes are taken (except when the VM is turned off) for a backup. The Hyper-V writer adds the VM in the following format:

• For offline backups: Backup Using Saved State\<VMName>
• For online backups: Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\<VMName>

Additional reason if we have less than 300MB free space on a volume in the

Many Thanks for your answer,

Do we have a date for SP1 yet, I know this is currently in beta.  Im tempted to struggle on with the issue till this ships as I can work around it, however none of the above conditions apply so not sure why its doing a saved state backup however as its not support I dont expect it to be looked at.

Thanks

Hi,

The Hyper-V writer on the hyper-V host communicates with the integration components inside the guest and determines if child partition or saved state backup will be performed.

To get a real-time view of how then next backup will be perfomed, you can run the following test.

To list hyper-V writer captions for guests to see if online or saved state backups can be done:

From an administrative command prompt:

a. Type: copy con script.txt and press enter
b. Type: list writers and press enter
c. Press CTRL + Z (to save)
d. Type: diskshadow /s script.txt | find /i "caption: backup using"

Output will be displayed for each guest.

Since the problem is outside of DPM, I recommend you start a new post in the Windows Clustering forum:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/threads

I have to say I'm pretty disappointed that Microsoft would RTM an operating system that is not supported on it's own backup product. If you can't properly protect it than it shouldn't be released yet.

See this: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/thread/b687fa93-4de7-4c88-af69-06bb6bf494be

Tks.

UPDATE 3-13-13
+++++++++++

We have had several customers confirm that adding the below registry key and value inside the Windows 2012 guest resolved the behavior.

You need to add a key called SystemRestore, then a value under it called ScopeSnapshots as follows.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
REG_DWORD:ScopeSnapshots:0x0

UPDATE 3-13-13
+++++++++++

We have had several customers confirm that adding the below registry key and value inside the Windows 2012 guest resolved the behavior.

You need to add a key called SystemRestore, then a value under it called ScopeSnapshots as follows.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
REG_DWORD:ScopeSnapshots