Friday, April 1, 2011

DPM doesn’t display SQL Server to protect

After finding a few others that had this issue it seemed to be that “SQLServerWriter” is not registered so DPM cannot use database level snapshots and only use volume snapshots. I had this issue with DPM 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2. From reading the other issues it seems to be limitation by the SQL Server VSS Writer and spaces in the database name. So that would affect any version of DPM and any version of SQL that includes SQL VSS writer that continued to function this way.

Batch Script to determine is the correct services are running.

sc query VSS

sc query SQLWRITER

sc query DPMRA

VSS Command to verify SQLSERVERWRITER has registered. This command requires Administrator Elevation. In your results should include writer name: 'SqlServerWriter' .

vssadmin list writers

SQL Script to Detect which database has a space at the end of the name.

select name from sys.databases WHERE right(name,1) = ' '

Below is a script includes all checks if your SQL Server has powershell enabled.

References:

DPM 2007 / SQL 2005

http://systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/41516/Default.aspx

DPM 2010 / SQL 2005

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmsqlbackup/thread/432b4e38-6c7c-4fe0-abe5-769275784fcf#e5ae80fa-14d3-4ccc-8713-d95187864acc

2 comments:

Ben said...

From what I have read, this only applies to databases with spaces at the start or end of the database name. In your case, did it apply to databases with spaces in the name?

For example:
Not " MyDatabase"
or "MyDatabase "
but "My Database"

Patrick Nielsen said...

Ben,
I have datasebases with spaces in between words and my issue was with space at the end of the name. If your having issues with dpm and using spaces in the middle of your name I would look into dpm agent logs. Those are located on the server under program files and then dpm.