Upgrading System Center DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 Part 1

This is the first of many of System Center 2012 blog posts that I'm planning on writing over the next few months and I think it's only right that I start with one of the first System Center products that I began working with back a few years ago when it was System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007.

This backup offering from Microsoft has come a long way since those heady days of being simply a 'Microsoft backup product for Microsoft products'!

When I think back to the DPM 2007 application, I recall that, pre-Service Pack 1, it hadn't even got support for Hyper-V - although this was also in it's infancy in relation to where its at today!

A few years back, the company I worked for - CDSoft - who have now been acquired by the company I currently work for - Ergo Group Ireland - built up our System Center skillset and practice by implementing DPM 2007 SP1 along with the new Hyper-V virtualization application that came with Windows Server 2008 RTM. Although we found DPM 2007 SP1 to be an excellent brick-level backup product and a really good standalone Hyper-V host backup product, it was still lacking  when Windows Server 2008 R2 came along with Failover Cluster support and Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV's).

Late in 2009 we started hearing about DPM 2010 which had full support for Hyper-V R2 CSV's along with hardware based VSS snapshots and much better performance results. DPM 2010 is the most widespread and 'in-production ' version of Microsoft's backup offering and it's nearly a perfect fit for any Small to Medium Enterprise customers who have Hyper-V R2 installed in their environment - the type of customer that we see a lot of over here in Ireland!

With DPM 2012, Microsoft have really improved on it's performance and extensibility, along with now having a really tight knit integration with the other System Center products- most notably System Center Operations Manager (SCOM).

In the last couple of weeks I have found that it is possible to perform an in-place upgrade from DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 BETA to DPM 2012 RC to DPM 2012 RTM. Microsoft don't support the upgrade to RTM from the BETA or RC releases but will of course support the upgrade of DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 RTM.

As a result of this upgrade path, the following few blog posts will offer a guide to upgrading an existing System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 installation that has active trusted and untrusted domain agents deployed, along with protection groups that are fully populated from a production environment.

Edit Update May 2012: I've decided to update this post to reflect the upgrade process of DPM 2010 to the DPM 2012 RTM build as some of the references and screenshots to the BETA build - of which this series was originally written - are now defunct.

Upgrade Pre-Requisites

Before starting the actual upgrade, it’s always a good idea to take a backup of the DPMDB SQL database of your DPM 2010 server before beginning the DPM 2012 upgrade. In most instances, your DPM server is not going to be a virtual machine and as such, we have to revert back to the more traditional methods of ensuring we can recover if things don’t work out as planned with your upgrade!

You can back up the DPM 2010 SQL database quickly using the SQL Server Management Studio to logon to the SQL instance.

You can then right mouse click on your DPMDB database and choose the ‘Tasks’ and then ‘Back up’ flash out menus like the screenshot below

From the next screen, select a location for the backup of the database (or leave the default if you wish) and then select ‘OK

Once this is complete, you can close the SQL Server Management Studio window and proceed with the DPM 2012 upgrade

Below is some important information taken from the ‘System Center 2012 Data Protection manager Help’ document that you need to be aware of prior to starting the upgrade:

Important Information:

• If you are upgrading an existing installation of DPM, the registry key for DS Collocation Factor is retained if it was modified by you and does not get reset.
• Click Ignore on any pop-up dialog boxes that appear during upgrade.
• If your Express Full backups for SQL Server databases are transferring large amounts of data (almost the size of the primary MDF file), you must install the update KB2471430 on the SQL Server. This typically happens after you have run DBCC CHECKDB on a Windows 2008 server.
• Note that DPM 2012 will only run on Windows Server 2008 (R1) or higher
• You MUST install the latest QFE rollup for DPM 2010 onto all of your DPM 2010 servers first and then once the update has been installed, you must push out the update to your protected servers that DPM 2010 is currently protecting.

You can download the latest QFE rollup for DPM 2010 from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2465832

Edit February 2012: There is an additional hotfix that you will now need to download and install as part of your upgrade to DPM 2012. This hotfix (KB 2615782) enables interoperability between DPM 2010 and the latest DPM 2012 build. You can download it from the following link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2615782

When you have backed up your DPMDB database, installed the QFE rollup to your DPM 2010 servers and reviewed the important information above, you can download the DPM 2012 installer to continue

Download the DPM 2012 Evaluation from the link below, otherwise you can use the full build media that you are entitled to under licence from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/evaluate/trial-software.aspx

Extract the contents of the DPM 2012 zip file to a location on the C drive of your DPM 2010 server.

This will give you two folders similar to the screenshot below

 

 

 

The ‘CC_x86_setup’ folder is the 32bit Central Console installer that enables you to install the new DPM console onto your x86 Windows 7 client machine if you wanted to

We will be using the ‘SCDPM' folder to carry out our upgrade

Double click on the ‘SCDPM' folder , right mouse click on the ‘setup.msi' installer file and select the ‘Run As Administrator’ option to run the installer with elevated rights

That will open the DPM 2012 splash screen as below. You can click on the ‘Run the Pre Requisite Checker’ option that will take you to a Technet article outlining all you need to know to confirm all your pre-requisites are in place for a smooth installation.

This blog post will assume that your original DPM 2012 installation is operating on a physical DPM 2010 server with the SQL role co-located on the same hardware using the default DPM 2010 SQL installation options. If you have your DPM 2010 installation on a remote SQL instance, or even want to move to a new remote SQL instance now, then this is a supported process with the upgrade and it is covered in more detail with the accompanying DPM 2012 documentation

Click on ‘Data Protection Manager’ to continue

 
Accept the licence and click on ‘OK’

From the ‘Data Protection Manager Setup Wizard’ window, click on ‘Next’

From the next window, leave the ‘Use the dedicated instance of SQL Server’ option enabled and click on the ‘Check and Install’ button to carry out a simple ‘pre-requisite’ check on your DPM SQL installation

Leave the defaults enabled from the next screen and click ‘Next’

At the next screen, input your licence key for System Center 2012 RTM and then click 'Next'

Type in the password for your DPM SQL service account and click ‘Next’ again

From the next screen, select the option to enable Microsoft Automatic Updates and then click ‘Next’ again

Select your option for the CEI Program and then click on the ‘Upgrade’ button (you should only see ‘Upgrade’ if you are performing an upgrade of DPM 2010 and all the pre-requisites have been met

Now let the upgrade wizard do its thing

If all goes according to plan, then you should see the screen below confirming successful upgrade of DPM 2010

Once you click on the ‘Close’ button, you will then be presented with the following window requesting that you reboot your DPM server to complete the installation

Click ‘OK’ and then reboot the server

When your server has rebooted, you will notice that your DPM 2010 desktop shortcut has changed to a nice new DPM 2012 one!!

In Part 2 of this short series, I will demonstrate what needs to be carried out to get your protected server agents - both trusted domain based and non-trusted domain based upgraded to the DPM 2012 agent files. I will also explain what needs to be done to ensure your existing protection groups are synchronized and fully up to date without having to modify or recreate them.