Data Protection Manager on a DC with tape drive?

August 31, 2007

I'd post this to the DPM newsgroup but it isn't showing up in my list of

available groups right now.

I have a small network with 2 servers.

I have a DPM 2005 disc.

Server1 is a file server and DC ("PDC" role holder actually).

Server2 is a redundancy and backup server ("BDC", and tape backups). It

also stores the boss's non-business files (mostly mp3's, video's and pics).

Both servers serve DHCP, DNS and WINS, but no databases or exchange (yet).

Both servers are Server 2003 R2 SP2.

We normally backup up around 36GB of critical data (includes system states).

We would like to have full backups in the future (about 140GB), but we

need a new tape drive for that.

Normally we run NTBackup weekly on Server1 and write the resulting BKF

to tape along with Server2's data (including system state) from Server2.

This uses a lot of disk space on Server2 (to store Server1's backup

image).

I've read up on DPM but can't quite understand if it will be OK to use

on Server2 since it is a DC. The diagrams also never put DPM on the

same server with the tape drive or one with Active Directory, not sure

if this is important or just for readability.

I'd like to use DPM for daily snapshots (incremental), or some form of

data replication so we can take better advantage of shadow copies, etc.

Does anyone know if DPM can be safely hosted on a DC?

Does DPM write data to tape itself or do I configure that separately

(via NTBackup, etc)?

What kind of disk space would I probably need on Server2?

Does Microsoft have a number I can call for these kinds of pre-sales

questions?

Should I ask these questions in another group?

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