You are correct, DPM won't connect to a HW snapshot.   Even if the DPM server was also the SQL server, it won't connect to it.  It's not set up to do the off host backup and script the MS iSCSI initiator to log into it.  W/O that, it can't access a snapshot on the array.  You can't "tunnel" to it.  As far as the server is concerned that would be another disk.  And w/o the MS iSCSI initiator to connect to the snapshot it can't get there. 
Hi,   We have recently purchased two EQL PS4100X SANs that are going to be used, amongst others, for SQL Server 2008 R2 database failover cluster. The databases will be backuped with DPM 2010/2012 using the SQL Agent. We have been told that the autosnapshot manager (that works together with the HIT/ME tools) will create a VSS snapshot on the EQL SAN and that the DPM agent on the SQL Server will be able to use that snapshot and send it to the DPM 2010/2012 server. I know about off-host backup, where the backup server connects to the snapshot volume, but I understand from earlier posts that atleast DPM 2010 does not support this kind of setup. However, this is not going to be off-host backup, it would rather be on-host backup... I have my doubts that the SQL Server would be able to see the snapshot volume that has been created by the snapshot manager through HIT/ME but please correct me if I am wrong. Maybe it is done through powershell scripts that will also mount and unmount the snapshot volume on the SQL Server so it can be backuped throught the DPM agent. Can someone tell me wether this can be done and if so what is required for it to work? Thanks in advance. Greetings, Jos Rossiau
DPM and HIT/ME snapshots