DPM–How to force to use alternate Path for Backup (Backup VLAN)

 

FIGURE 1 : Backup Recommendations

In most of the scenario, usually the Servers will have only a single network card.  However in Best Practice, it’s best to have 2 network cards at least.  One for the Production and another one for the BACKUP VLAN.  This way it will definitely improve the performance of the backup and will not interrupt the Production network.

As the above in FIGURE 1 shown, a second network card has been added to all the protected servers and the DPM server.

The vLANS are as follow :

Server	Production NIC	Backup NIC	Subnet
DPM Server (DPMSRV1)	10.242.51.13	192.168.1.13	255.255.255.0
Protected Server 1	10.242.51.101	192.168.1.101	255.255.255.0
Protected Server 2	10.242.51.102	192.168.1.102	255.255.255.0
Protected Server 3	10.242.51.103	192.168.1.103	255.255.255.0

Now I would like to force the backup to go through the Backup vLAN which is the 192.168.1.x

Step 1

• Once the Network cards are configured with IP address, do a nslookup.
• From the DPM Server, ping the Protected Server through the 192.168.1.x IP address. 
• Then ping from the Protected Server to the DPM Server through the 192.168.1.x IP address too.
• Check if the 192.168.1.x IP address have reported to the DNS Server.  By right there should be 2 entries for each server.  1 is the Production VLAN and another is the Backup VLAN.
• The Backup VLAN is best to be isolated and ONLY backup traffic travels through the BACK VLAN
• If there’s no DNS, then you may opt for editing an entry in the host file in the Protected Servers and the DPM Server.

Step 2

• The following information of the DPM Server name:
  Server Name : DPMSRV1
• In the DPM server launch the DPM Management Shell which is the PowerShell command.
• The following information I will key in the PowerShell is as follow to force 1st priority for backup job packets to travel in is :
  Add-BackupNetworkAddress –DpmServername DPMSRV1 –Address 192.168.1.0/24 –SequenceNumber 1
• Note that the PowerShell command line as above, the only thing you need to change is in PINK in colour.  One is the DPM Server Name and another is the Backup VLAN segment.

Step 3

• This step is optional but you can add in as a precaution, just in case the Backup VLAN is removed.
• Same step, in the DPM Server, from the PowerShell key in as follow :
  Add-BackupNetworkAddress –DpmServername DPMSRV1 –Address 10.242.51.0/24 –SequenceNumber 2
• As you can see that priority is Sequence Number is number 2.  This means that the backup will continue even though the Backup VLAN has failed.

Step 4

• Restart the DPM Server Services & the Protected Server Services by the following in command prompt.
  • net stop dpmra
  • net start dpmra
• Trigger the backup task from the DPM server
• Check that the network packets are travelling through the Backup NIC through the Task Manager – Networking.

The information can also be found in MS Technet.

Thank you and hope this helps you as it helps me.

keywords : Using Backup Network Address, alternate network backup path, backup VLAN, DPM backup VLAN, how to backup through a different network path with DPM.