Microsoft DPM and HyperV backups

[mdrabble]

About to start re-jigging my backups and wondered how people using MS DPM backup their VMs.

 

Our VMs are on a SAN within a HyperV Cluster.

 

Im currently backing up the VMs as if they are physical servers, this probably isnt the best way of doing it but I was new to DPM at the time.

 

 

I know some people may suggest Veeam but as Budgets stand I cannot afford it - but I am using the Free Edition on my testing rig - not sure if the Free edition would be suitable for backing the Cluster.... or would it?

 

So..... open to suggestions as to which method works best for most people.

[Achandler]

I believe DPM 2012 R2 will now backup the whole VM.

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/hh757970.aspx

[Sagima]

With one exception we just back up the entire virtual machine using DPM - usually once or twice a week. The servers they are connected to for their data (file or sql for example) get backed up a couple of times a day. But I don't have any virtual file or sql servers.

The virtual Exchange server is backed up like my normal exchange server.

[sonofsanta]

DPM 2012 SP1, I Backup Using Saved State to the hard disk space on the DPM server, and every Thursday they go onto magnetic tape to go off-site. SQL servers have the agent installed on them and have their databases backed up separately. Pretty straightforward to recover using these backups.

 

I also take a System State backup of the virtual DC, and once a term take that home with me on a penstick so I can rebuild the domain offsite in the event of disaster to enough of a level to rebuild the backup server, get access to the encryption certificates and begin the process of getting everything back off the encrypted tapes.

[clockend25]

We backup the whole VM, never had an issue. The exceptions being our file servers where we backup the volumes and system state, primarily in order to try and get the deduplication savings into our backup totals. Unfortunately there's an ongoing issue whereby DPM keeps failing to copy de-duped volumes onto tape, and MS have done sweet FA to resolve it.