Finally got around to upgrading my DPM 2010 RC to the RTM version, so thought to quickly run through it on the blog as well. I guess I can run this one without screenshots this time as the steps should be clear enough.
Started out with the DPM 2010 upgrade advisor you can find at http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/F/3/FF3347F5-C076-400C-A77A-B6FFA0EA56A4/DPM%20Upgrade%20Advisor.xls
My situation is DPM 2010 RC to DPM 2010 RTM on Windows 2008 R2 with a local database and no localization or other special options. The upgrade advisor gave me the following todo list:
1. Close DPM administrator console and DPM management shell if opened.
2. Launch DPM 2010 RTM Retail setup and proceed by clicking on Install DPM
3. Complete the installation wizard and restart the computer to complete the upgrade (if prompted).
4. Upgrade agents on production servers
5. Run consistency check for all the protected Datasources
6. Uninstall DPM 2010 RC SQL instance (Optional) if there are no issues after upgrade. However, if you're looking for downgrade then DPM 2010 RC DPMDB is required.
Looks like the plan I had in my head, so that is good.
When running the installer it could see it was about an upgrade already 
. Walked through the steps of the wizard; simple enough. Runs some prerequisite checks, asks you where to install the SQL database and if you want to use another SQL instance. It will ask for a strong password to run some services. It will install SQL 2008 SP1 and DPM 2010, so will have to wait a little for that to finish.
The upgrade was successful. I got new icons on the desktop and in the program itself, so that is nice 
So the next step is to upgrade the agents. Opened the DPM console and went to agent management. Upgraded most agents from there. I know the few workstations are turned off at the moment and the Forefront TMG server is blocking the upgrade because of its firewall. No big issues there, I can fix that part. Most agents now have version 3.0.7696.0.
So next is running the consistency checks on the protection groups. That takes a while.
Meanwhile try to uninstall the old SQL instances. Hmmm, an error!
Seems it has a problem accessing one file and because of that it did not want to uninstall the Report Server feature of both old SQL instances (yeah, I also still had the DPM Beta instance there). It did remove the database engine though for both. The security settings on both files he had a problem with seemed to be fine, so I tried the old troubleshooting technique of the impatient and successful system admin … Reboot!
After the reboot I was able to remove both old SQL Reporting Services instances. 
Told you!
Now continue to let it check anything that is not consistent and fix where needed.
Looks like a good update!
Bob Cornelissen
Last night a number of DPM 2010 data sheets have been released. You wil find links below. It is great to see these documents and we are eagerly awaiting more white papers as Jason is suggesting.
Here are 5 new datasheets describing different capabilities within DPM 2010:
How to Protect Microsoft SQL Server with DPM 2010
How to Protect Microsoft Exchange with DPM 2010
How to Protect Microsoft SharePoint with DPM 2010
How to Protect Windows Clients with DPM 2010
Thanks to the DPM group!
Enjoy!
Bob Cornelissen
The SQL 2008 R2 Best Practises Analyzer (BPA) has been released and can be downloaded follwing this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0fd439d7-4bff-4df7-a52f-9a1be8725591
This BPA works with both SQL 2008 and SQL 2008 R2.
The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 BPA is a diagnostic tool that performs the following functions:
- Gathers information about a Server and a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or 2008 R2 instance installed on that Server
- Determines if the configurations are set according to the recommended best practices
- Reports on all configurations, indicating settings that differ from recommendations
- Indicates potential problems in the installed instance of SQL Server
- Recommends solutions to potential problems
The following are required for using SQL Server 2008 R2 Best Practices Analyzer:
- PowerShell V2.0
- Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer V2.0
Make sure to read the installation and configuration instructions, especially if you want to remote scan several servers from one location.
Enjoy!
Bob Cornelissen
The SCOM Management Pack for DPM 2010 is currently in beta and can be found on MS Connect.
This was actually a good reminder for me to upgrade my DPM to the RTM version as it is still running the RC! Was because I was waiting for the bits to be released on MSDN and that took a while. I just downloaded the bits yesterday, so will quickly upgrade the whole stuff this week!
Bob Cornelissen
Thanks to David Allen for this article on DPM data churn!
Some reminders for myself of some recent articles, posts etc about MP authoring.
1) This article is a guideline to all developers out there who want to develop customizable providers for CIM Servers to instrument management assets on Cross Platforms, in particular any one of the flavors of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or any UNIX based Operating Systems. Found here.
2) Great step-by-step article from Jonathan Almquist [MSFT] on how to create a computer group and configure groupcalc in the MP authoring console. Found here.
3) Great step-by-step article from Jonathan Almquist [MSFT] on how to create an instance group and configure groupcalc in the MP authoring console. Found here.
4) Authoring Custom Templates and Writing Custom UI. Found here.
The first version of Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 Dashboard has been published last Friday.
The Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 Dashboard lets you track incident and problem resolution, change control, and asset lifecycle management—with an easy to use, customizable Web interface. Because the Dashboard is built on Windows SharePoint Services, IT staff can access information without using the Service Manager console. The Dashboard is a free Solution Accelerator, and fully supported by Microsoft.
Enjoy!
Bob Cornelissen
There are a few virtual labs available for System Center Service Manager 2010 (SCSM) and you can find them here:
1. System Center Service Manager 2010 Setup and Deployment
2. System Center Service Manager 2010 Incident and Change Management
3. Data Warehouse and Reporting in System Center Service Manager 2010
4. Integration of System Center Service Manager 2010 with Other System Center Products
5. Extending and Customizing System Center Service Manager 2010
Thanks to Cleber Marques for pointing me to these (a few weeks ago).
Bob Cornelissen
Bob Cornelissen
Like I said a lot of interesting things are happening and here are a few posts from several blogs (and a few from the You had me at EHLO blog!) that caught my eye for several reasons!
Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta has been released and has been discussed previously by the exchange team covering new features and can be downloaded here.
Update rollup 4 for exchange 2010 is available since 17 June. You can find more info on the exchange team blog here.
I actually wonder if the exchange 2010 database reduncancy check script as discussed here has been included in Rollup 4 already.
Nagesh from the exchange team made a posting on a deeper dive into the RPC Client Access Server in Exchange 2010.
And Ross about single item recovery in Exchange 2010.
Something I have not yet used, but has ben around for a few months already is the successor for PFDAVadmin and is called ExFolders. This is to be used with Exchange 2010 as WebDAV has disappeared from that version. Also the PFDAVAdmin tool has gotten an update lately.
A big thank you to David Zazzo for pushing MS to release a tool they have used internally for some time to work with many RDP connections. RDCMan is the name of the tool and can be downloaded here. You can read more about the tool in Davids blog post.
A paper on the advantages of Exchange Unified Messaging features to boost Voicemail can be found here.
The Exchange guys have been creating a video series with Perry Clarke about of course Exchange! You can check out the Ask Perry series with sessions like "Exchange Data Protection" and "More Exchange Data Protection - Beyond Replication" and "Exchange Mailbox Storage Bricks".
Thats about all I quickly saw passing by that I wanted to mention and move back to soon. Last weekend I did an MS update run and it did not pick up the Rollup 4, so I will do that during off hours this week manually 
Will have to see when to test the SP1, as it includes some nice features as well!
Bob Cornelissen
Wow, its already a few weeks ago since my last post. It has been a bit busy the last weeks. Even a few weekends filled with migrations and things like that.
In the meantime there has been lots of interesting stuff blogged and posted etc etc. Also some things I want to keep on my radar and I will place them together as links in a smaller amount of posts :-)
I saw some good Exchange posts for instance that I want to look into a bit more.
Anyway, the next posts will be partly aggregated links. And there are also some other things I wanted to blog about that take a bit more time. Will come to that soon!
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