Backup Linux using Microsoft DPM 2010

Update (2012-07-18)
Today we transitioned from Microsoft DPM 2010 to Microsoft DPM 2012. It was no problem as the structure remained the same - backing up the copied files off our linux clients from the windows host NFS volume.
-Justin

We had a conundrum on a project over winter in my department. We’d been moving toward Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager 2010 to take over all our backups for our systems, but a new system that was coming online was a Red Hat server. Data Protection Manager doesn’t have a native client that supports Red Hat to add it to a protection group, unless you buy an expensive Data Protection Manager appliance that run’s a proprietary client.http://www.evault.com/products/data-backup-software/microsoft-backup-recovery/index.html

We put our heads together and came up with a cheaper alternative that required some initial labor and ongoing overhead to verify backups. We ended up with some overelaborate scripts to suite our taste, but I’ve oversimplified it for easy reading.

First, we carved out some backup storage space on both the Red Hat server for the initial local backups and on the Data Protection Manager’s server for an NFS mirror.

Second, we added an NFS root on the Data Protection Manager’s server with the NFS mapping to a mount on the Red Hat server.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=324089
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/3/html/System_Administration_Guide/s1-nfs-mount.html


Third, a bash script creates tar files on the Red Hat server that is activated via a daily cron. Once the tar files are created, we use the RSYNC to mirror the local storage backups from the Red Hat server to the Data Protection Manager’s storage via the NFS mount folder.
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/4/html/Step_by_Step_Guide/s1-managing-compressing-archiving.html#S2-MANAGING-ARCHIVING
http://rsync.samba.org/

Forth, the Data Protection Manager Server NFS Root is added to a D.P.M. Protection Group.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161486.aspx

Lastly, we added scripts on both systems that pruned files based on our retention requirements and added log file outputs for verification and diagnostics.

It was a bit of an exercise to get this configured and learn the technologies, but I think it was well worth the learning experience to challenge ourselves, fight limitations, and save some hard costs of equipment with soft costs of labor.