Upgrade Steps Outline - DPM 2010 to 2012 SP1

System Center

What follows is the basic outline I followed to upgrade System Data Protection Manager 2010 - DPM - running on a Windows Server 2008 R2 host to DPM 2012 SP1. Obviously each step has small libraries of documentation you could read, warnings you could ignore, and whatnot - but if you're simply looking to make sure you've got the right steps planned out, this is what I did to upgrade our setup:

Please note - I did this same set of steps across both of our systems (primary site and secondary site).

  1. Ensure Windows is up to date.
  2. Ensure DPM 2010 is up to date.
  3. Ensure you are running SQL Server 2008 R2 (I have SP1 -- 10.50.2550.0)
  4. You are set to install DPM 2012 at this point. Install was simple - put in the disk, provide some passwords... next, next, next.
  5. Reboot.
  6. Install DPM 2012 RU3 -- (download)
  7. Upgrade agents -- NOTE: Our DCs, SQL and Exchange mailbox hosts required a reboot. Most other systems did not. Reboots were NOT forced automatically so I scheduled a maintenance window for them that night. YMMV.
  8. Reboot
  9. Perform a consistency check against all protection groups.
  10. Wait
  11. Wait some more.
  12. Once the consistency checks are done and ALL your protection groups are green...
  13. Install DPM 2012 SP1 - again SUPER SIMPLE install. Nothing to complain about.
  14. Reboot
  15. Install DPM 2012 SP1 RU2 (download)
  16. Upgrade agents -- Unlike last time, none of our systems needed a reboot.
  17. Reboot
  18. Run another consistency check.

At this point you're all done. I would recommend taking a look at tape optimization in 2012 SP1 for those of you who run your offsite backups on DPM.