Remove active filter drivers that could interfere with CSV operations

One of my cluster nodes had DPM previously installed on it. As a result, I would get re-directed Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) whenever it is moved to this node. In the cluster warning, I saw:

Cluster Shared Volume 'Volume1' ('CSV Volume name') has identified one or more active filter drivers on this device stack that could interfere with CSV operations. I/O access will be redirected to the storage device over the network through another Cluster node. This may result in degraded performance. Please contact the filter driver vendor to verify interoperability with Cluster Shared Volumes. 

Active filter drivers found: SIS (HSM) 

 I search through the Technet on DPM 2012 on how to remove its SIS filter. Unfortunately, this page isn't updated for WS2012 that has no ocsetup.exe anymore. Hence, the replacement for ocsetup.exe is DISM /Online. To remove SIS filter:

Dism /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:SIS-Limited

Reboot the system after removal and the CSV is no longer re-directed.

Does DELL MD32xx support hardware VSS snapshot for DPM Backup?

Answer: Yes, but it's not official. It's best effort (due to its low cost as compared to its high cost Compellent counterpart).

Hardware VSS snapshot provides an efficient way for DPM to backup Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) on Hyper-V cluster. Without hardware assisted snapshot, the CSV access would be placed under Redirect I/O mode as long as the backup process is taking place (which can be a long process). This can significantly reduce the I/O performance for other VMs on the same LUN. That's why it's more efficient to keep as small number of VMs per CSV as possible for software VSS. With hardware assisted VSS, a temporary snapshot is instead created on the free space on the SAN volume. CSV would only be placed on Redirect mode for a couple of minutes.

Screenshot of VSS Hardware Snapshot (new virtual disk temporarily created denoted with a clock icon) on MD Storage Manager during DPM backup:

How do we configure VSS setting on Dell MD storage?

Step 1: Install the VSS provider given on the Dell MD Storage Manager DVD or ISO image.

Step 2: Confirm Dell hardware VSS provider is installed on the system
C:\> vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2012 Microsoft Corp.

Provider name: 'SmVssProvider'
   Provider type: Hardware
   Provider Id: {24e4e8a3-69cb-4370-8b7b-c5276cd49765}
   Version: 10.84.02

Step 3: Configure the default VSS behavior on the storage as shown below. Run "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SMprovider\provider\SmRegTool.exe" on the console installed with Dell Storage Manager. Connect to the storage using OOB Management IP addresses.

Hyper-V (WS2012) Backup on Guest VM (WS2008)

If you're running backup jobs (e.g. DPM2012) on WS2012 Hyper-V with older guest VMs (e.g. WS2008), you might encounter this error:

The replica of Microsoft Hyper-V \Backup Using Child Partition Snapshot\[VM] on [Host] is inconsistent with the protected data source. All protection activities for data source will fail until the replica is synchronized with consistency check. You can recover data from existing recovery points, but new recovery points cannot be created until the replica is consistent. 

For SharePoint farm, recovery points will continue getting created with the databases that are consistent. To backup inconsistent databases, run a consistency check on the farm. (ID 3106) 

To resolve it,
1) ensure that the host contains this update KB2770917 (available in Windows update)
2) Update the Integration services on the older guest VMs e.g. WS2008R2 etc

SQLPrepInstaller of DPM2012 installation using remote SQL server

This Technet link describes the setting up of remote SQL server of Microsoft's latest backup solution - System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2012 SP1.

A missing step is not mentioned for using remote SQL instance (i.e. SQL not installed on same server as DPM). You'll have to run the "SQLPrepInstaller" on the SQL server. Insert the DVD, ISO or file share image of DPM installer on the SQL server. Click on the following menu on the launcher.