Locating the DPM Servers
Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2010
System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 must be deployed in a Windows Server 2008 or a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Domain Services directory services structure to support its protection and recovery operations.
DPM can protect servers and workstations across domains within a forest that has a two-way trust relationship with the domain that the DPM server is located in. If there is not a two-way trust across domains, you must have a separate DPM server for each domain. DPM supports data protection across forests as long as you establish a forest-level, two-way trust between the separate forests. To set up a forest-level trust relationship, both domains must be in Windows Server 2008 forest mode.
When deciding where to locate your DPM server, consider the network bandwidth between the DPM server and the protected computers.
Note
If you are protecting data over a wide area network (WAN), there is a minimum network bandwidth requirement of 512 kilobits per second (Kbps).
DPM supports teamed network adapters, also called interface cards (NICs). Teamed NICs are multiple physical NICs that are configured to be treated as a single NIC by the operating system. Teamed NICs provide increased bandwidth by combining the bandwidth available using each NIC and failover to the remaining NIC or NICs when a NIC fails. DPM can use the increased bandwidth achieved by using teamed NICs on the DPM server.
Another consideration for the location of your DPM servers is the need to manage tapes and tape libraries manually, such as adding new tapes to the library or removing tapes for offsite archive.