Tuesday 29 December 2015

Configuration Manager 1511 - important change in backup strategy required (CD.Latest)

System Center Configuration Manager landing page

Please be aware of a very important change required to your backup strategy in Configuration Manager 1511 (and later). As you know regular upgrades will be available for the product (every 4 months or so) and you will be able to upgrade using update packages in the "Updates and Servicing" node of the Administration > Cloud Services workspace.


Have a look at the new folder CD.Latest. This contains the source files that actually installed the current site.


Have a look inside - recognise the contents?

This folder will be required when you are recovering a failed site so it must be included in a backup strategy. Note that the
built in backup maintenance task will back up this folder automatically. Also note that there is no point in backing up this folder once. It must be ongoing because, when upgrades are installed, Configuration Manager also updates the CD.Latest folder with the current files.

You can read about this change in the Backup and Recovery for System Center Configuration Manager document in the TechNet library.

This quote from that document issues us with a warning:

"If you do not have the correct CD.Latest folder and its contents available, you cannot recover a site that must be reinstalled".

Site recovery is actually started by running the Configuration Manager Setup Wizard from the CD.Latest folder.

I hope this information helps you to keep your Configuration Manager site safe. Until next time...

3 comments:

  1. We successfully upgraded our SCCM2012R2SP1 to CB 1511, but after upgrade we are getting backup failed error in primaries servers.

    The error message is Failed to copy file(s) in CD.Latest, so we checked CD.Latest folder and it contains only setup files of CB 1511.

    Please suggest on that.

    Detailed error message:

    Error: Failed to backup \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT CONFIGURATION MANAGER\CD.LATEST up to \\uswv1vsm01\d$\SCCMBackup\PrimarySiteServer - WPS\WPSBackup\CD.Latest: ERROR: CTool::TreeCopy to \\uswv1vsm01\d$\SCCMBackup\PrimarySiteServer - WPS\WPSBackup\CD.Latest failed. Error = [error code: 5, error message: Access is denied.].
    SMS_SITE_BACKUP 6/2/2016 2:29:43 AM
    5300 (0x14B4)
    STATMSG: ID=5043 SEV=E LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_SITE_BACKUP" SYS=uswv1vsm01.vsnl.co.in SITE=WPS PID=2380 TID=5300 GMTDATE=Thu Jun 02 06:29:43.617 2016 ISTR0="\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT CONFIGURATION MANAGER\CD.LATEST" ISTR1="\\uswv1vsm01\d$\SCCMBackup\PrimarySiteServer - WPS\WPSBackup\CD.Latest" ISTR2="" ISTR3="" ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=0 SMS_SITE_BACKUP
    6/2/2016 2:29:43 AM 5300 (0x14B4)
    Failed to copy file(s) WPSBackup\CD.Latest. SMS_SITE_BACKUP 6/2/2016 2:29:43 AM
    5300 (0x14B4)
    Error: Backup Failed for Component - WPSBackup\CD.Latest.
    SMS_SITE_BACKUP 6/2/2016 2:29:43 AM
    5300 (0x14B4)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hello please check your antivirus on accessscan log and add an exeption about inf files

      Delete
  2. thanks . I had the backup issue with \CD.Latest , McAfee and turned out to be the culprit.

    ReplyDelete