PlateSpin Forge 11.3 includes many new features and enhancements, and resolves numerous previous issues. It also resolves important performance and reliability issues. This version of Forge is a software only release for PlateSpin Server.
The documentation for this product is available in HTML and PDF formats at the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Documentation website.
For information about how to purchase and download this product, see the PlateSpin Forge product website.
The following changes have been made to this document since the release of PlateSpin Forge 11.3 in April 2018.
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PlateSpin Forge does not support dynamic disks that contain multiple dynamic volumes (Simple, Striped, Mirrored, Spanned, or RAID). It supports dynamic disks that contain a single dynamic volume. |
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Section 5.1, RHEL 6.10 Source Workloads Crash During Incremental Replication |
This section is new. |
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 includes the following new features and enhancements. See also Significant Changes in Behavior or Usage
and Unsupported Platforms or Configurations
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 Forge discussion on Micro Focus Forums, our community website that also includes product notifications, blogs, and product user groups.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 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.
Forge 11.3 adds support for block-based data transfer with a driver for Windows Server Clusters that use Fibre Channel SANs. 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 Forge User Guide.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 provides expanded support for the following configurations.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 adds support for the following source Windows workloads:
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Source Workload |
Version |
Remarks |
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Microsoft Windows |
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Protection of Microsoft Windows Server 2016 servers and clusters requires VMware ESXi 6.0 or higher. For upgraded systems, support for Microsoft Server 2016 is not available without rebuilding to Forge 11.3 Appliance 4, which provides VMware 6.5 U1. |
For information about all Windows workloads supported by PlateSpin Forge, see Supported Windows Workloads
in the User Guide.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 adds support for the following source Linux workloads:
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Operating System |
Supported Versions |
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) |
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Forge 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. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8, Oracle Linux 6.8, and CentOS 6.8 workloads with LVM volumes, incremental replication is supported only for the latest available kernel (version 2.6.32-696.20.1.el6.x86_64) for the 6.8 distribution. |
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SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) |
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Oracle Linux |
Distributions based on RHEL. |
Precompiled blkwatch drivers are available for UEK and RHCK for Oracle Linux 6.7 and higher. |
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CentOS |
Distributions based on RHEL. |
Use RHEL blkwatch drivers. |
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Open Enterprise Server |
2015 SP1 |
Use SLES blkwatch drivers for the appropriate distribution. For OES 2015 SP1, Forge supports NSS32-bit pools up to 8 TB in size; NSS64-bit pools are not supported. |
For a list of precompiled blkwatch drivers for newly supported Linux distributions, see Linux Distributions Supported by PlateSpin Forge
in the User Guide.
For information about all Linux workloads supported by PlateSpin Forge, see Supported Linux Workloads
in the User Guide.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 ships with a VMware 6.5 U1 protection container on Appliance Version 4.
NOTE:For upgraded systems, VMware 6.5 U1 is not available without rebuilding to Forge 11.3 Appliance 4, which provides VMware 6.5 U1. See Upgrade.
For more information, see Supported VM Containers
in the User Guide.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 adds the following enhancements for supported source workloads.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 adds support for virtio devices:
Storage and network drivers for virtio devices
Signed drivers for Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtio devices
Drivers for RHEL KVM virtio devices
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 Forge 11.3 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 Forge 11.3 adds support for LVM raw disk volumes for Same as Source storage configurations on Linux workloads.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 adds the ability to leverage NSS snapshots for NSS pool replication. For more information, see Configuring NSS Snapshots for NSS Pool Replication
in the User Guide.
The PlateSpin Forge 11.3 upgrade for PlateSpin Forge Server supports your custom password for the Microsoft SQL Server system administrator (sa) user of the PlateSpin Database.
After you set up the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Appliance, we recommend that you set a custom secure password for the Microsoft SQL Server system administrator (sa) user of the PlateSpin Database. See Modifying the Password for the SQL Server Express System Administrator User
in the User Guide.
Micro Focus is aware of the side-channel analysis vulnerabilities described in CVEs 2017-5715, 2017-5753 and 2017-5754, known as Meltdown and Spectre. Some patches might already have been applied to the shipping Forge Appliance. However, we strongly recommend that you continue to apply security updates that address such threats as recommended by the vendor for the Dell BIOS, the VMware ESXi host, and the Windows Server operating system running on the Forge VM. Consult the vendor documentation for information.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 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 Forge 11.3 updates OpenSSL to address vulnerability issues in OpenSSL. For more information see the OpenSSL project.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 improves performance and reliability for the following:
OFX Controller
Workload configuration tasks in the Web Interface
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 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 User Guide.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 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 Forge 11.3 no longer supports protection of Windows Servers with the Hyper-V Role.
PlateSpin Forge does not support dynamic disks that contain multiple dynamic volumes (Simple, Striped, Mirrored, Spanned, or RAID). It supports dynamic disks that contain a single dynamic volume.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 no longer supports the protection of desktop (workstation) platforms for any operating system.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 no longer supports Forge appliances running on Dell PowerEdge R610 and R710.
Micro Focus strives to ensure that our products provide quality solutions for your enterprise software needs. The following issues are being researched for PlateSpin Forge 11.3.
If you need assistance with any issue, visit Micro Focus Support, then select PlateSpin Forge.
Issue: During incremental replications, a system crash occurs for source Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.10 workloads running Linux kernel 2.6.32-754.6.3.el6.x86_64. RHEL 6.10 is not a supported workload for this release. A precompiled blkwatch driver is not available. (Bug 1119323)
Workaround: The system crash is a known issue for RHEL 6.10 running Linux kernel version 2.6.32-754.6.3.el6.x86_64. See the following Red Hat Knowledgebase Articles:
To avoid this issue, do either of the following:
Follow the Red Hat Bug Advisory RHBA-2018:3763, which will apply Linux kernel 2.6.32-754.9.1.el6.x86_64 to the source workload.
-OR-
Use Linux kernel version 2.6.32-754.3.5.el6.x86_64 or earlier on the source workload.
After the crash occurs, your custom blkwatch driver might cause a failure in the normal boot process on the source workload. Remove the blkwatch driver until you have resolved the Red Hat issue. See How to Disable the blkwatch Kernel Module on Source Linux Workloads (KB 7006279).
Issue: Precompiled blkwatch drivers for kernel version 2.6.32-642 on RHEL 6 U8 fail at incremental replication for workloads with LVM volumes. (Bug 1078055)
Workaround: For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8, Oracle Linux 6.8, and CentOS 6.8 workloads with LVM volumes, incremental replication is supported only for the latest available kernel (version 2.6.32-696.20.1) for the 6.8 distribution. Update the kernel, then use the following blkwatch drivers:
Issue: Precompiled blkwatch drivers for kernel version 2.6.32-573 on RHEL 6 U7 fail at incremental replication for workloads with LVM volumes. (Bug1018176)
Workaround: 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) for the 6.7 distribution. Update the kernel, then use the following blkwatch drivers:
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 and 970822)
Workaround: The order of the Linux partitions on the disk does not impact functionality. The target machine works as expected.
PlateSpin Forge 11.3 resolves numerous software defects for Forge 11.2 that were reported by customers and partners. See PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Resolved Issues.
Refer to the following information to plan your installation or upgrade of PlateSpin Forge 11.3.
For upgrade, PlateSpin Forge 11.3 can be applied to a base installation of PlateSpin Forge 11.2 Appliance Version 3, with or without hotfixes or patches applied. See also Upgrade
.
To upgrade your PlateSpin Forge Server to PlateSpin Forge 11.3, you must have an existing installation of PlateSpin Forge 11.2 on your Forge VM, with or without hotfixes or patches applied. Other direct updates are not supported. The VMware host is not upgraded. For earlier versions of PlateSpin Forge, you must first upgrade to version 11.2 before you can upgrade to PlateSpin Forge 11.3.
For information about how to upgrade your PlateSpin Forge Server to version 11.3, see the PlateSpin Forge Upgrade Guide.
The Windows Server 2016 support requires VMware 6.5 U1. You can rebuild supported PlateSpin Forge Appliance 3 systems to PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Appliance 4. A rebuild allows you to upgrade the PlateSpin Server to Forge 11.3 and the VMware host to VMware ESXi 6.5 U1. See the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Rebuild Guide. Contact Customer Care to obtain the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Upgrade/Rebuild Kit and a replacement VMware 6.5 license for our system.
For information about activating your PlateSpin Forge license, see Activating Your Product License
in the PlateSpin Forge User Guide.
For Release Notes documents that accompanied previous PlateSpin Forge releases, visit the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 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 HTML page in the English 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 Forge 11 or later versions cannot be used for PlateSpin Forge 3.3 or prior versions.