How to remove a dead server from DPM 2010

Every DPM administrator will have sooner or later this problem.  A server has been removed, decommissioned or went dead suddenly.  But the agent was never installed through the UI so it remains there.  DPM starts to throw errors at you because it’s not possible anymore to backup that server and you want to delete the agent from the console.  And, of course, business requires that you retain the data for a specific period.

If that period is within the thresholds that have been set, then there is no problem as you will see later in this post.  However, if you need to maintain the data longer, then you better “restore” the data to a tape, so you can store it away for a longer time.

But, for today, here is the procedure how to remove the ‘dead’ agent

In this screenshot you can see an agent that is not reachable anymore.

So I tried to remove the agent.  I did right click and choose Uninstall

This is the error I’m getting.  The server is still in one of my protection groups, so I can’t remove it until I first remove it from the protection group.

So I’m going to the protection group

Right-click and choose Stop Protection of Group.

Note: In case you want to remove a server out of a protection group, but don’t remove the protection group then you need to modify it.  It will automatically create an Inactive protection for previously protected data in the UI

I choose to delete the protection group and retain the data

After the job, I have an inactive protection for this source

So back to my management, right-click on the dead server and Uninstall

I have to enter my credentials

The agent is being uninstalled

But as said, the server is dead, so this is not going to work.  DPM now asks me if I want to remove the agent record from the database.  I choose Yes

At the end, DPM still tells me that the job has failed, but since I told him to remove the record, it should have done the job after all.  And indeed, the server will not be listed anymore in the UI.

When I go back to protection, I will see that I still have data for that source and still can restore if needed.  Again, don’t forget to restore to somewhere if you need it longer, otherwise the data will be gone after it’s protection period is over