System Center 2012 SP1 – Data Protection Manager is Generally Available!

[System-Center-Team]

First published on TECHNET on Jan 15, 2013

This morning we announced the availability of System Center 2012 SP1.   You can read more about the release on the System Center blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2013/01/15/system-center-2012-sp1-is-generally-...

New features for Data Protection Manager in System Center 2012 SP1:

• 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 Express Full backups.
  • Parallel backups.
  • No performance difference between backups from owner and non-owner nodes.
  • Support for SMB shares.
  For more information on deploying DPM protection for Hyper-V virtual machines, see Managing Hyper-V computers
• Protect Hyper-V over remote SMB share
  In Windows Server 2012, you can now use SMB file shares as remote storage for Hyper-V. With this new capability, Hyper-V can store virtual machine files, which includes configuration, virtual hard disk (VHD) files, and snapshots, on SMB file shares. This offers benefits like Ease of provisioning and management, increased flexibility, ability to take advantage of existing investment in a converged network, reduced capital expenditures, and reduced operating expenditures.
  In System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) DPM, SMB shares support allows the following benefits:
  • More efficient Express Full backups.
  • Continued protection even after Live Migration.
  • Support for SMB shares in standalone and scaled-out deployments.
  For more information on deploying DPM protection for Hyper-V virtual machines using SMB file shares, see Managing Hyper-V computers
• 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
  Data deduplication involves finding and removing duplication within data without compromising its fidelity or integrity. DPM allows optimized back of deduplicated volumes, both locally and over the network.
  For more information on protecting deduplicated volumes, see Protecting deduplicated volumes
• Support for Live Migration
  Live migration is a Hyper-V feature in Windows Server that allows you to transparently move running virtual machines from one node of the failover cluster to another node in the same cluster or another cluster without a dropped network connection or perceived downtime.
  In System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) DPM, Live Migration support allows the following benefits:
  • Uninterrupted protection for migrated virtual machines.
  • Support for inter-cluster, cluster to standalone, and standalone to cluster migrations apart from intra-cluster migration.
  • Support for SMB shares.
• Integration with Windows Azure Online Backup Important

  Windows Azure Online Backup currently is currently on Preview and does not support production environments.

  • With System Center 2012 SP1, DPM can now backup data from the DPM server to an offsite storage managed by the Windows Azure Online Backup Service.
  • System Center customers can avail of this functionality by signing up for the Windows Azure Online Backup service. Customers will need to download and install the Windows Azure Online Backup agent on the DPM server which will be used to transfer the data between the DPM server(s) and Windows Azure Online Backup service.
  • Up to 120 DPM recovery points can be retained in Windows Azure Online Backup.
  • Support for Windows Server 2008 R2 – Online backup can be enabled on DPM servers running on Windows Server 2008 R2.
  • Support for protecting SQL Server.

• 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.