Options for recovering data with data Protection Manager

Backing up your data is critical, but if you don't know how to recover the data, those backups are useless to you. Here is a list of options for data recovery using the Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM).

Data Protection Manager works by making shadow copies of your data. Data Protection Manager is set by default to data protection every hour and three shadow copies per day. It makes a separate version of the shadow copy of a file at a time. If the Data Protection Manager server has enough disk space, data Protection Manager can save up to 64 different versions of a file.

When the data Protection Manager detects that a file has been modified, it does not make the modified part of the file a separate file version (unless the shadow copy happens at this time). Instead, the modified part will be applied to the most recent shadow copy. This allows data Protection Manager to ensure that data for more than one hours is never lost and that there will be three separate versions of files that can be saved in one day (by default).

Why does data Protection Manager not perform shadow copies per hour? First, doing so will require more system resources to be used by the data Protection Manager. Second, three shadow copies a day can allow about 21 days of file versions to be retained. If the shadow copy is executed hourly, the file version retention will not exceed three days (because of the 64-bit limit).

One of the biggest features of data Protection Manager, however, is its ability to retain different versions of files. If you need to recover a file, the first thing to do is to find out which version of the file you want to restore. You can usually do this by looking at the date and time flags for this file.

Perform a basic restore

A basic recovery involves recovering a file through the Data Protection Manager 2006 Management Console. To follow these steps:

Open the Data Protection Manager management Console and select Restore

You can see the list of protected servers, and expand the list of servers that contain the data you want to recover. You can see two sub Containers (sub-containers): All shares and all volumes.

Select the appropriate container (depending on whether the server is protected at a shared or volume level) and expand it.

You can see a list of dates and times, in most cases, one of these date/time folders can match the date/time class of the file you want to recover. If you see a container containing the appropriate date/time flags, expand the container to display the protected files and folders.

Right-click the file or folder you want to recover, and select Restore command from the menu.

If a container does not contain the appropriate date/time sign, does this mean that the file in the time period is invalid? No, data Protection Manager only shows the most recent replication container.

If you need a newer version of the file than the one displayed in the container, go to any container and find the file or folder you want to recover. Right-click on the file or folder and select the "Show All Versions" command, and Data Protection Manager will display all versions of the dialog box, which may take several minutes, but eventually this dialog will show all available versions of the file or folder. Select the version you want to use and click "Restore" button.

Find the data to recover

You can use the Data Protection Manager's built-in search engine to locate the data to be recovered. Imagine a user who wants to restore a file named Tuseday.doc, but can't remember where the file is stored. If you do not know the address of this file, if you browse the entire directory to find the file, you will never find it. Fortunately, by clicking on "Restore" and then selecting "Find", you will see a search engine that will allow you to search the database for special files.

Configuring End user Recovery

You can configure the data Protection Manager so that it allows end users to recover files themselves instead of looking for you. First you have to use the schema of the Active Directory, which is not a big problem in itself, but I recommend that you back up your domain controller before using it. If there are any problems with this process, your Active Directory may be in trouble.

To configure Data Protection Manager to support end user recovery:

Select "Restore" and click the "Configure End user Recovery" link.

When the options on the toolbar are open, select the part of the end-user recovery.

Click to configure the Active Directory button

You will be prompted to enter an admin certificate, and when you do this, you will be able to see a message reminding you that the Active Directory will be modified, and ask if you want to continue and click OK.

Wait for it in the process. The process can last a few minutes.

Once this process is over. Select the "Start end user recovery" option on the toolbar. The server can now support end user recovery. However, you must install a Data Protection Manager on the user's workstation to notice the shadow copy client. You can download this shadow copy client.

Note: The version of this shadow copy client needs to run Windows XP to run SP2.