DPM 2012 - Installing Service Pack 1 RTM (Part 1)

At long last the final Release To Manufacturing (RTM) version bits of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for System Center 2012 are generally available (GA). 

This Service Pack has been highly anticipated as it not only delivers the customary bug fixes that are to be expected with any such release , but it also brings a large number of new exciting feature additions and enhancements.

This post is one of a number of posts that I've been working on to help people get upgraded to System Center 2012 Service Pack 1. You can check out my other posts here:

• SCOM 2012 - Installing Service Pack 1 RTM (Part 1)
• SCOM 2012 - Installing Service Pack 1 RTM (Part 2)
• SCOM 2012 - Installing Service Pack 1 RTM (Part 3)
• System Center 2012 Orchestrator (SCORCH) - Installing Service Pack 1 RTM

Update February 2013 - If you want to be in with a chance of winning a copy of our Mastering System Center 2012 Operations Manager book, then check out the link below to see what you need to do:

Win a Copy of Mastering SCOM 2012 by Evaluating System Center


Be aware that System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 contains updates for the whole suite of products and not just Data Protection Manager (DPM) and it's advised that you follow a particular upgrade sequence of each product as per this warning:

If you are planning to upgrade two or more System Center components, it is imperative that you first consult the guide 'Upgrade Sequencing for System Center 2012 SP1'. The order in which you perform component upgrades is important. Failure to follow the correct upgrade sequence might result in component failure for which no recovery options exist

If you are happy enough with your product upgrade sequence and are now ready to start the DPM 2012 RTM upgrade to Service Pack 1, then this blog post will detail the pre and post SP1 upgrade tasks that you need to consider along with walking you through the deployment of SP1 to your DPM server infrastructure.

Some of the information contained in this post will be taken directly from the accompanying 'DPM2012_UpgradeSP1' guide from Microsoft.

DPM 2012 Service Pack 1 Enhancements

The following list contains some of the enhancements that SP1 brings to System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager (DPM 2012):

• Improved backup performance of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V over CSV 2.0 deployments
• Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) provide a distributed file access solution so that multiple nodes in the cluster can simultaneously access the same NTFS file system

In System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) DPM, CSV 2.0 support allows the following benefits:

• 900% improvement in expressful backups
• Parallel backups
• No performance difference between backups from owner and non-owner nodes
• Support for SMB shares
• Protect Hyper-V over remote SMB share

In System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) DPM, SMB shares support allows the following benefits:

• More efficient expressful backups
• Continued protection even after Live Migration
• Support for SMB shares in standalone and scaled-out deployments

DPM now allows you to exclude virtual machine pagefiles from incremental backups to improve usage of storage and improve backup performance

• Scale out support for Hyper-V virtual machines
• Protect Windows 8 deduplicated volumes
• Support for Live Migration
• Integration with Windows Azure Online Backup
• Support for protecting file server data
• Support for protecting virtual machines
• Support for protecting SQL Server 2012 databases that use the AlwaysOn feature
• You can use a stand-alone instance of SQL Server 2012 to host the DPM database
• Support for protecting file server using Resilient File System (ReFS)
• Support for protecting SharePoint 2013
• Support for protecting Exchange Server 2013

Upgrading From DPM 2010

Also, before we kick off, it's worth pointing out that although you can perform an in-place upgrade of Service Pack 1 from an existing DPM 2012 RTM installation, you CANNOT upgrade directly from DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 SP1. Instead you must first upgrade DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 and then perform an in-place upgrade.

If you are running DPM 2010 and want to deploy DPM 2012 Service Pack 1, you can check out these old posts of mine to get you started:

• Upgrading System Center DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 Part 1
• Upgrading System Center DPM 2010 to DPM 2012 Part 2

High-Level Overview

Here's a high-level overview of what's involved to get your DPM 2012 environment upgraded to SP1:

1. Accomplish Pre-Upgrade Tasks
2. Upgrade Primary DPM Servers
3. Push Install Upgrade to Agents/ Upgrade Manually Installed Agents
4. Run a Manual Consistency Check on Protected Data
5. Upgrade any Stand-Alone Remote Administration Consoles
6. Upgrade Secondary DPM Servers
7. Accomplish Post-Upgrade Tasks
8. Return to the Upgrade Sequencing Guide

Pre-Upgrade Tasks

• Install the latest DPM hotfixes on the DPM server and protected computers (Cumulative Update 3 KB 2751230 is the most recent). For the latest updates and hotfixes for DPM, see Downloads for System Center Data Protection Manager.
• Ensure that the hard disk on which DPM is installed has at least 4.5 gigabytes (GB) of free disk space
• You must back up the DPM database and save the backup file in a secure location. For obvious reasons, don't use DPM to backup it's own database prior to upgrading!
• If you have library sharing enabled, you must first disable library sharing and then backup your DPM dataset. You can enable tape library sharing after installing DPM successfully. For more information, see Removing Library Sharing on TechNet.
• If you are upgrading your instance of SQL Server to SQL Server 2012, it's recommended to install a new instance of SQL Server 2012 before proceeding with the upgrade. For step-by-step instructions for installing a remote instance of SQL Server, see Installing a Remote Instance of SQL Server 2008
• Then migrate your database using the steps outlined in Remote SQL Server instance to Remote SQL Server instance
• If you are also upgrading your operating system to Windows Server 2012, you must enable the Deduplication role.

Upgrade Primary DPM Server

Note 1

If you want to use a remote SQL instance, run the DPM Setup.exe installer on the remote SQL Server and select the DPM Remote SQL Prep tool option from the Setup page. For more information on upgrading DPM database, see the Upgrading the DPM Database article on Technet.

To begin the SP1 upgrade, logon to your DPM 2012 Management Server with an administrative account and then browse to the location that you have mounted or extracted your DPM 2012 SP1 RTM media to. Now right-mouse click on 'Setup' and choose the 'Run As Administrator' option as shown below

From the splash screen, choose the Data Protection Manager link to begin

Click to accept the license terms and conditions, then hit OK

If you haven't installed Cumulative Update/Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2012 to DPM, then you will be presented with the error message below. To upgrade first to CU3, see Downloads for System Center Data Protection Manager.

If you have deployed CU3, then you will see the Welcome screen of the DPM 2012 Setup wizard. Click Next to continue

If you are performing an upgrade of the locally installed SQL instance that runs DPM, then from the Prerequisites Check window, choose the top option as shown below. If you are installing onto a remote SQL server, then you will select the bottom option. Once you have made your selection, click the Check and Install button to move on

When the check has completed, you will be given a final warning to ensure that you have your DPM SQL databases backed up. Click Next to continue

From the Product Registration screen, input your System Center 2012 product key and then click Next

Either choose where you want to install the database files or leave as the default settings, then click Next

At the Security Settings window, enter a password that you are going to use for the DPM SQL Server service account, then click Next

Select whether or not you want to Opt In to use Microsoft Update and then click Next to continue

Choose a setting for the CEIP and then click the Upgrade button to begin the upgrade

Note 2
I had a problem when deploying this upgrade initially to my production DPM 2012 server and halfway through the installation, I was presented with Error ID 820 as the screen below shows. If you come across this issue, take a look at this link for assistance in resolving the problem. For my environment, as I had performed numerous in-place upgrades of DPM over the last couple of years, the installation was strangely failing because the SQL Agent Service for DPM2010 wasn't running. When I started this service and re-ran the upgrade, everything worked as expected!

Once the upgrade finishes successfully, you will be presented with the screen below. Click Close to exit the wizard.

Conclusion

This completes the upgrade to SP1 of your primary DPM 2012 server. In Part 2, I'll walk through the final steps required to completely upgrade your Service Pack 1 deployment.