PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 (11.2.1) includes new features and enhancements, and resolves several previous issues. It also resolves important performance and reliability issues.
The documentation for this product is available in HTML and PDF formats at the PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 Documentation website.
For information about how to purchase and download this product, see the PlateSpin Protect product website.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 includes several new features and enhancements.
Many of these improvements were made in direct response to suggestions from our customers. We thank you for your time and valuable input. We hope you continue to help us ensure our products meet all your needs. You can post feedback in the PlateSpin Protect discussion on Micro Focus Forums, our community website that also includes product notifications, blogs, and product user groups.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 has been rebranded as a Micro Focus product. The rebranding does not impact product features, installation paths, and file names. Your existing licenses remain valid.
Protect 11.2 SP1 adds support for block-based transfer for Windows Server Clusters. The WindowsClusterMode setting must be set to SingleNodeBBT in the PlateSpin Configuration settings. Supported Windows Clusters include:
Microsoft Windows Server 2016
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
See Preparing for Windows Cluster Protection
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 provides expanded support for the following configurations.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds support for the following source Windows workloads:
|
Source Workload |
Version |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|
|
Microsoft Windows |
|
Replication requires VMware 6.0 or later containers. |
For information about all Windows workloads supported by PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1, see Supported Windows Workloads
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds support for the following source Linux workloads:
|
Operating System |
Supported Versions |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) |
|
Protect does not support the XFS version 5 (v5) file system on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 and distributions based on RHEL 7.3. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.7, Oracle Linux 6.7, and CentOS 6.7 workloads with LVM volumes, incremental replication is supported only for the latest available kernel (version 2.6.32-642.13.1.el6.x86_64) for the RHEL 6.7 distribution. This is the same kernel that is used by the RHEL 6.8 distribution. |
|
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) |
|
|
|
Oracle Linux |
Distributions based on RHEL. |
Precompiled blkwatch drivers are available for UEK and RHCK for Oracle Linux 6.7 and higher. |
|
CentOS |
Distributions based on RHEL. |
Use RHEL blkwatch drivers. CentOS 7.x requires VMware 5.5 or higher. |
|
Open Enterprise Server |
2015 SP1 |
Use SLES blkwatch drivers for the appropriate distribution. |
For information about all Linux workloads supported by PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1, see Supported Linux Workloads
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds support for the following target VM containers:
|
Target VM Container |
Version |
|
|---|---|---|
|
VMware vCenter |
|
|
|
VMware ESXi |
|
|
For information about the VM containers supported by PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1, see Supported VM Containers
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds blkwatch drivers for the newly supported Linux distributions:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.7 to 6.9 and 7.0 to 7.3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 4
This release also adds precompiled blkwatch driver support for Oracle Linux (formerly Oracle Enterprise Linux) versions with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (OEK). Drivers are available for the Oracle Linux installed with the standard Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) or the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). In other Oracle Linux releases, precompiled drivers are available only for the standard kernel.
Oracle Linux 6 (U7, U8, U9)
Oracle Linux 7 (GA, U1, U2, U3)
For a list of the non-debug Linux distributions for which PlateSpin Protect has a blkwatch driver, see Linux Distributions Supported by PlateSpin Protect
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds the following enhancements for storage media.
The Same as Source storage mapping strategy configures storage objects for the target volumes and disks in the destination storage location using the same layout, size, and format as the volumes on the source workload.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 does not support the XFS version 5 (v5), which is available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3, and distributions based on RHEL 7.3.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds support for VMware vSAN 5.5 and 6.2 on target VMware vCenter containers.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds support for LVM raw disk volumes for Same as Source storage configurations on Linux workloads.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 adds the ability to leverage NSS snapshots for NSS pool replication. For more information, see Configuring NSS Snapshots for NSS Pool Replication
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 updates the GNU C Library (glibc) to address vulnerability CVE 2015-7547, a stack-based buffer overflow in the getaddrinfo() function in the glibc DNS client-side.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 updates OpenSSL to address vulnerability issues in OpenSSL. For more information see the OpenSSL project.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 improves performance for the following:
OFX Controller
Workload configuration tasks in the Web Interface
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 resolved issues that affected the behavior or usage of the following features:
To avoid discovery failures caused by timing issues, a default heartbeat startup delay of 15 seconds (15000 ms) is set on the OFX Controller. The Controller heartbeat is configurable by adding the HeartbeatStartupDelayInMS registry key on the source workload. This registry key is not configured by default. See Modifying the OFX Controller Heartbeat Startup Delay
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 improves replication performance by increasing the amount of memory allocated to the replication environment. In the PlateSpin Configuration settings, the default value of the TakeControlMemorySizeinMB parameter has been increased from 512 MB to 768 MB.
NOTE:In an upgrade, the parameter value is automatically increased or decreased to the new default value of 768 MB. If you set a higher custom value, you must reset it manually after the upgrade.
When a source workload is in a NAT environment, you can configure the target workload to use the source workload’s NAT public IP address as the first address to try in a NAT IP-pinning scenario when connecting to the source machine for replication.
As a best practice, ensure that no backups run during the narrow window when the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot is created for Windows workload replication. This practice applies for any software that uses VSS to create snapshots, including anti-virus, SQL backups, and so on.
This release allows cluster node names in mixed case. It treats all node names as case insensitive.
This release adds a clean-up step to remove the temporary ofx.* files from the /tmp directory after a replication job runs. You can manually remove the existing ofx.* files in the /tmp directory.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 no longer supports the protection of desktop (workstation) platforms for any operating system.
Micro Focus strives to ensure that our products provide quality solutions for your enterprise software needs. There are no known issues for PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1.
If you need assistance with any issue, visit Micro Focus Support, then select the appropriate product category.
Issue: PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 does not support XFS version 5 (v5), which is available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.3 and distributions based on that release, including CentOS 7.3 and Oracle Linux 7.3. The Oracle Linux 7.3 UEK and RHCK default installations use the XFS v4.x file system.
In the Web Interface, the source workload file system validator does not stop you from configuring a workload with the XFS v5 file system. However, an unexpected error occurs in the Copy Data job, with a message in the system log about the wrong file system type.
To verify whether the source workload is using the XFS v5 file system, enter the following on the source workload as the root user:
dmesg | grep XFS
It returns the following message:
... Mounting V5 Filesystem
Workaround: For source Linux workloads based on the RHEL 7.3 distribution, use the XFS v4.x or earlier file system, or use a different supported file system.
Issue: A source Windows workload has a Simple Dynamic Volume or a Spanned Dynamic Volume. The member partitions for the Windows Dynamic Disk are initialized as MBR, but the volume size exceeds 2 TB. A disk error occurs when the volume is created on the target workload:
Npart error code 28 msg=Device sdd does not have enough free space (no space left on device)
Protect does not support Windows Dynamic Disks at the target. The dynamic disk will reside on the target workload as a Simple Basic Volume disk. If the total combined size of partitions in a dynamic disk exceeds the MBR partition size limit of 2 TB, the target disk must be initialized as GPT.
The Npart error occurs because the summation process misses the last member partition when it calculates whether to initialize the target disk as MBR or GPT. In most cases, the total combined size falls well below or well above the 2 TB limit for MBR partitions, and the target disk is properly initialized as MBR or GPT. In rare cases, the last partition size is large enough such that the disk size exceeds the 2 TB limit. Because the calculation misses that partition, the disk is partitioned improperly as MBR, and available space is limited to 2 TB. (Bug 1046179)
Workaround: Do one of the following:
Re-partition the source and initialize the Dynamic Disk as GPT.
-OR-
If the Dynamic Disk uses MBR, a patch is required. Contact Technical Support, or search for current patches in Micro Focus Patch Finder.
Issue: On a Linux workload with multiple Linux partitions on the same disk, the partitions are created in the opposite order on the target workload. For example, if the source partition order is AB, the target partition order is BA. (Bugs 988650, 970822)
Workaround: The order of the Linux partitions on the disk does not impact functionality. The target machine works as expected.
Issue: For a Linux workload, a standard swap file or LVM swap file is not recognized after discovery as a swap file because of a pvscan error. A validation error occurs:
Validation failed: [ProtectionSpec:SwapSpaceWillBeRecreated] At least one swap partition must be recreated in the target. Swap space /dev/mapper/rootvg-swap will not be recreated in the target
Discovery and failover might be affected. (Bugs 967241 and 1025310)
Workaround: A patch is required. Contact Technical Support, or search for current patches in Micro Focus Patch Finder.
PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 resolves several software defects for Protect 11.2 that were reported by customers and partners. See PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 Resolved Issues.
Refer to the following information to plan your installation or upgrade of PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1.
For information about requirements for a new installation of PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1, see Preparing to Install PlateSpin Protect
in the PlateSpin Protect Installation and Upgrade Guide. See also Installation
.
For upgrade, PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 can be applied to a base installation of PlateSpin Protect 11.2, with or without hotfixes or patches applied. See also Upgrade
.
For information about installing PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1, see Installing PlateSpin Protect
in the PlateSpin Protect Installation and Upgrade Guide.
To upgrade your PlateSpin Server to PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1, you must have an existing installation of PlateSpin Protect 11.2 on your PlateSpin Server host, with or without hotfixes or patches applied. Other direct updates are not supported. For earlier versions of PlateSpin Protect, you must first upgrade to version 11.2 before you can upgrade to PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1.
For information about how to upgrade your PlateSpin Server to version 11.2 SP1, see Upgrading PlateSpin Protect
in the PlateSpin Protect Installation and Upgrade Guide.
For information about activating your PlateSpin Protect license, see Activating Your Product License
in the PlateSpin Protect User Guide.
For Release Notes documents that accompanied previous PlateSpin Protect releases, visit the PlateSpin Protect 11.2 SP1 Documentation website, and go to Previous Releases at the bottom of the Table of Contents.
Our goal is to provide documentation that meets your needs. If you have suggestions for documentation improvements, click comment on this topic at the bottom of any page in the HTML version of the documentation. You can also email Documentation-Feedback@microfocus.com.
For specific product issues, contact Micro Focus Support at https://www.microfocus.com/support-and-services/.
Additional technical information or advice is available from several sources:
Product documentation, Knowledge Base articles, and videos: https://www.microfocus.com/support-and-services/
The Micro Focus Community pages: https://www.microfocus.com/communities/
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License Grant
Licenses purchased for PlateSpin Protect 11 and later versions cannot be used for PlateSpin Protect 10.3 or prior versions.