Hi all,

I have a DPM 2012 R2 in use, to backup Hyper-V 2012 R2 workloads across a bunch of servers. It's working great and I'm very happy with it. 

The only issue I have is that the backups are accessible in the same network as the content they're backing up. So, for example, if someone in the same network decided to be malicious, they could delete the source but also the backup.

What I want to know is, without resorting to tapes, is there a somewhat simple way I can backup DPM to two other machines? I have two spare machines each with sufficient disk space to hold another copy of the DPM data that I'd like to use, in a rotation, so I can have the one not in use physically disconnected from the network, thus protecting it from a malicious attack.

I suppose I could try WSBU to backup DPM but I have a feeling that would be a disaster. I know I can chain DPM 2012 R2 servers but the chain has to be sequential, so this doesn't solve my problem, as all 3 servers would still need to be on the network at the same time.

Does anyone have any ideas? Microsoft says 3rd party products can be used to back up DPM but I'm not sure which ones are appropriate and I also kind of feel like this is probably achievable in the Microsoft world?

Any help would be appreciated. 

May have answered my own question:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/vtl-page

A Virtual Tape Library, allowing SATA disks to appear as tapes. That may work. Thoughts?

http://www.quadstor.com/virtual-tape-library.html
It's free! Better yet!

Unless someone has a better idea, I think this will do it!

Hi Rodney,

If you can present the disk space from the other machines to DPM you could use a Virtual Tape Library (VTL).
That way you could take on of the machines offline while putting the other online and simulate a tape-rotation. 

Be sure to keep a fresh copy of your DPM-database in a protected place to easier restore the DPM-environment in case of a loss of the production DPM-database occurs.