In this post we will see how to restore a server with Bare-Metal Recovery protection in Data Protection Manager 2012 R2. The server to restore is a virtual domain controller on Windows Server 2012 R2. Previously I have made a full system protection of this server. For this example, servers are named as below:

• Protected server: VMADS01
• DPM server: VMDPM01

There are two steps to restore a server with BMR protection:

• Recover a BMR backup
• Restore a server with Bare-Metal Recovery

Recover the Bare-Metal Recovery

First of all, I verify that VMADS01 is protected rightly. I need at least one recovery point for this test. So the below screenshot shows you that replica of VMADS01 is all right’s. So let’s go to recover the Bare-Metal Recovery.

First open the Recovery tab. In Browse field, enter the name of your server. Choose a recovery point with the calendar. Once you have chosen a recovery point, right click on Bare-Metal Recovery as below, and select Recover.

On the first screen of recovery wizard, just click next.

Because I have no tape library, I want to copy recovery files to a network folder. So the recovery will be performed across the network.

On specify destination screen, click on Browse and choose where you want store the recovery files. I choose VMDPM01 on D:\Restore folder.

Next configure recovery options as you want. You can for example set the network bandwidth uses for recovery needs, an E-mail notification or security option.

Once all parameters are set, click on Recover to copy files where you have specified.

During the recovery process, you can view the state on Monitoring tab.

Once the recovery process is finished, you should have a recovery success alert.

Open the folder where are located recovery files and rename it with a shorter name. This is to ease the recovery process in the next steps.

Create a share on your recovery folder.

Now that recovery files are hosted and ready to be used, we will see how to use the restore files from server side.

Restore a server with Bare-Metal Recovery

First, insert ISO of your operating system to boot on the Windows Server installer. For me, the OS is Windows Server 2012 R2.

Choose your language as fresh OS installation.

Next click on Repair your computer.

Then click on Troubleshoot.

Click on System Image Recovery.

The below warning is normal. Because my machine has no data on its hard disk, no system image is stored. So just click cancel.

So click on Select a system image.

Click advanced to take recovery files from a network share.

Enter the network folder. For my example the network folder is \\VMDPM01\BMRMyComputer.

So the backup is listed. Select it and click next.

Select what you want to restore and click next.

In this section you have additional options. For example you can restore only one disk or install additional drivers.

Click on finish to launch the restoring of your system.

In barely 10 minutes, my server is restored. Because this server is a domain controller, I have checked about the behaviour of the replication process. It is impressive because the Active Directory service knows that a restoration took place and so it ask a replication from its friends!

As you have seen, the restoration process is pretty easy and fast so Bare-Metal Recovery protection is a good way to protect servers. However the main disadvantage of this protection type is that it uses a lot of storage space because all data are saved. But I am ready to lose some storage space for this awesome protectionJ.

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