Sunday, January 10, 2010

Installing Data Protection Manager 2007 on a Dell NX3000

Dell has this great NAS device that runs Windows 2008 Storage Server Standard--the NX3000. The only problem is that Dell treats it like an "appliance," meaning you can't partition it the way you want. I recently ordered two with 6x1TB drives and wanted to deploy DPM to them. Unfortunately, Dell's RAID1/RAID5 combo doesn't make very good use of the available storage. I wanted to be able to use most of the space for DPM storage, so I needed to re-set it up from scratch.

Dell only provides "recovery" media (an image as opposed to install media), so you need to obtain the Windows 2008 Storage Server media on your own (such as from MSDN). Note: Dell's recovery media will not work if the disk configuration if the first two drives are not in a mirror set.

I spent two days figuring it out so you don't have to.

Once you have the media, here are the steps to get it set up completely:

1. Download all of the drivers from the Dell Support Site and save them to a USB stick.
2. Install from Windows Storage Server 2008 media. Be sure to select the edition (if installing from media with multiple editions) that matches the WSS key on the system chassis). Use the WSS key on the chassis for installation.
3. Install drivers from USB stick.
4. Log in to server with username administrator, password wSS2008!. This would be the only OS I've ever installed with a pre-configured administrator password.
5. Install Dell OpenManage software from Dell System Build DVD.
6. Restart.
7. Add Web Server role and add all role services (except FTP).
8. Open command prompt and run start /wait ocsetup.exe SIS-Limited /norestart.
9. Run Windows Update and install all available updates to bring current.
10. Restart.
11. From System Center Data Protection Manager DVD, navigate to SQL2005 installation directory.
12. Run Setup to install SQL 2005.
13. Select Database, Reporting Services, and Workstation/Client components. Ensure all sub-items are selected by clicking "Advanced" button and expanding each component.
14. Specify an instance name of MS$DPM2007$.
15. On the Service Account page, select the Customize for each service check box and configure as follows:
a. Select Customize for each service account.
b. In the Service box, select SQL Server.
c. Select Use the built-in System account, then select Local System account.
d. In the Service box, select SQL Server Agent.
e. Select Use the built-in System account, then select Local System account.
f. In the Service box, select Reporting Services.
g. Select Use the built-in System account, and then select the Network service account.
h. In the Service box, select SQL Browser.
i. Select Use the built-in System account, then select Local Service account.
16. Accept defaults for the rest of the SQL 2005 installation.
17. Open the Internet Services Manager (Windows 2008 version).
18. Expand Web Sites, expand Default Web Site, and then click the virtual directory for the report server.
19. Under Features View, double-click Handler Mappings.
20. Under Actions, click Edit Feature Permissions.
21. Click to select the Scripts check box, and then click OK.
22. Close Internet Services Manager.
23. Open Services applet.
24. Stop all SQL services.
25. Run SQL 2005 SP2 setup.
26. Restart.
27. Launch System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 setup.
28. Select the local database instance (MS$DPM2007$).
29. Enter a strong password for the DPM account.
30. Complete setup, accepting all defaults.
31. Restart.
32. Download and install DPM 2007 SP1.
33. Restart.
34. Download and install most recent hotfixes from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961659/EN-US.
35. Call 1-888-571-2048 (if in USA) to activate WSS by phone (online activation will most likely not work in this instance; you will need to speak to a representative).

Good luck!

9 comments:

  1. After spending most of yesterday trying to get RAID 5 to work with 2 NX3000's I gave up and went back to the default setup. I was tempted to see if the MSDN/Technet Storage Server 2008 would work at all much less with the Dell Key but didn't want to risk the time envolved on trying. Thanks to your article though I now have two working NX3000's with one RAID 5 set! All I have left now is the DPM install. FYI, the Dell Key does work with the Technet SS2008 ISO. Also, a good thing to mention is that the default Admin PW for Storage Server 2008 is "wSS2008!".

    Thanks again!

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  2. No problem. This post is the culmination of two days on the phone with both Microsoft and Dell trying to get it worked out. In the end, I closed both of my cases and went at it alone. :-)

    I've updated the doc a little bit; please be sure to note that you must perform a phone activation for both installations and speak with a person. Neither online activation or the automated phone activation work if you use MSDN media.

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  3. Also, be sure to follow these steps for the rest of the DPM installation--it's the only way it will be successful. The DPM setup is broken and doesn't do steps 17-21 like it should if you use Windows 2008 as the OS platform. DPM will fail the reporting services configuration if that part isn't set up correctly.

    I've also found that sometimes the password isn't set correctly for the DPM Service Account during setup, so you may need to change that after setup. You'll know if, when you restart the server, the DPM service doesn't start. The SQL service runs as the DPM service account; changing it to LocalSystem will fix that problem should you run into it.

    The Technet sites for SSRS and DPM have changed a few times about the service account settings. I believe they now show what is here after I pointed it out to support; they used to instruct you to use separate domain accounts for all of the services.

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  4. Thanks for the follow-up and the activation advice. My 2 servers are activated and updating now... will tackle DPM shortly after. I had already spent 6hrs yesterday just messing with the hardware config alone. I would have been VERY frustrated with the DPM install had you not posted this. I'll post another reply when complete ;)

    Thanks again,

    Allen

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  5. Still having SQL issues... wasn't able to get around the SQL 2005 SP2 upgrade (due to it failing on the report server) so I completely uninstalled and install SQL 2008 SP1. Unfortunately, this makes the DPM setup crash completely. This DPM project is turning out to be a huge PITA. Since the error it gave me when updating the report server was login related I think I'm going to go back and try mixed mode.

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  6. The steps above should work (done it on a pair of NX3000's as well as a few standalone boxes). It's important that you select the right context for the services (Local System, Network Service, Local Service). Also, Reporting Services configuration will fail during DPM setup if steps 17-21 aren't done.

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  7. Went through it step by step, still couldn't get the Service Pack to install so I gave up and went with the DPM 2010 RC (after a fresh Storage Server install) and it installed SQL 2008 as part of the DPM setup. Looking back, the only I thing I can think of that I might have done differently is that I wasn't doing to SQL install as local admin and was running the install using a domain admin account.

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  8. It can be a frustrating install, indeed. Good news on your DPM 2010, tho. Do you know if you're able to upgrade the RC bits to the Beta bits? They've established an upgrade path from Beta to RTM, so if you can get to Beta, you should eventually be good to go. :-)

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  9. Thanks for all the help. I eventually had to drop the DPM project sadly. Everything in Hyper-V worked beautifully but the standalone Exchange 2003 server and a bunch of VMware VM's had issues. We've since switched off of Hyper-V to all VMware and are now using vRanger Pro for backups which we had successfully been using in our hosted environment. We'll probably give Hyper-V another shot in a year or two when the next version comes out and I'll pickup the then mature DPM 2010 at that time.

    Thanks again for the help though!

    ReplyDelete