Version 9.2 provides a number of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.
For documentation that accompanied earlier 9.x releases, visit the PlateSpin Migrate 9 Documentation Web Site.
Support for new Linux workloads: You can now migrate workloads running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.6-5.8, 6.0-6.2, and 6.3. This also covers the Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) distributions that are based on these Linux versions.
See the “Supported Source Workloads and Target Platforms” section in your User Guide.
Enhanced support for VMware vSphere 5: This release brings enhanced support for VMware vSphere 5.0 and 5.1.
See the “Supported Source Workloads and Target Platforms” section in your User Guide.
Support for WinPE 3.0: This release supports an additional version of Microsoft WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment). Built from Windows 7 code base, WinPE 3.0 addresses a number of performance and reliability issues; you can use it in Windows workload migrations, whose target hardware is not supported by the earlier version (WindowsPhysicalTarget.iso).
See WindowsPhysicalTarget.iso in the table of supported Boot ISO Images.
Localization: This release is accompanied by localized documentation. The supported languages are Japanese, French, and German.
Note that the English version of product documentation at the PlateSpin Migrate 9 Documentation Web Site, which is being updated more frequently than the localized versions, should be considered the most current.
Discontinued workloads: Support has been discontinued for workloads running the Microsoft Windows NT operating system.
Discontinued platforms: Support has been discontinued for the Solaris platform.
Discontinued hypervisor versions: Support has been discontinued for VMware ESX/ESXi 3.5 and vCenter/ESX/ESXi 4.0.
See the Supported Source Workloads and Target Platforms section in your User Guide.
Discontinued features: (Linux) Logical Volume Manager (LVM) 1 is no longer supported. Consider upgrading your source workloads to LVM 2.
The following is a list of bugs that were fixed for this release:
714964 Failure to Clean Up Deleted Jobs: Refreshing the of the PlateSpin Migrate Client re-listed jobs that were deleted earlier.
768811 Failure to Take Control of Source Workload: In some situations, the step of a migration job might fail to start.
740599 vCenter 4.1 Login Error: In some situations, attempting to carry out a operation resulted in a vCenter login error.
754537 Problem Migrating a SLES Workload from ESX 4.1 to ESXi 5: Attempting to migrate a SLES 11 SP1 VM from ESX 4.1 to ESXi 5 might occasionally get stuck with a recoverable error immediately after the job’s Release Control of Target VM step.
Support for the GUID Partition Table (GPT) standard: PlateSpin Migrate supports the migration of workloads that use the GPT disk partition layout standard. However, targets are always configured to boot from BIOS using an MBR (Master Boot Record). This limitation has the following implications:
Max 2 TB per volume: The maximum size of the volumes of a migration source restricted to 2.19 a workload’s terabytes, the maximum for a partition allowed by MBR.
X2P targets must boot from BIOS: Most hardware vendors provide support for both disk partitioning standards; for information on how to configure an X2P target to boot from BIOS, or to reconfigure GPT hardware to operate in “legacy mode” (with support for BIOS), see your hardware vendor documentation.
See also KB Article 7005452.
Workloads cannot be migrated to Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)-enabled hardware: This issue is currently under investigation.
595490 Preserving boot partition causes migration problems: In some migration scenarios, the system improperly allows you to preserve your boot partition on the target, preventing the proper workload from booting. This issue is under investigation.
Workaround: Do not opt to preserve your boot partition on the target.
702152 Migration over WAN taking a long time if target VM host has a high number of datastores: Under some circumstances, when your Migrate server is connected to the VM host over WAN, and if your VM host has a high number of datastores, the process of locating the appropriate ISO image required for booting the target might take longer than expected. This issue is under investigation.
698884: You cannot use a virtual CD-ROM drive when performing an ESXi to ESXi V2V migration if the version of the VMware Tools software is the same on the source and the target VM.
See KB Article 7008774.
685509 Failure with ‘Access Denied’ error during replication to an image stored on a network share: The Controller service on Image servers that use network shares for storage does not preserve the service Log On As credentials after an upgrade. Image operations fail with an Access Denied message until the controller service is updated with the correct Log On As credentials.
See KB Article 7008772.
506154 Special character in datastore name causing migration problems: Migration operations might fail when they are attempted on ESX datastores that have the + special character in the datastore name.
See KB Article 7008750.
655828 Failure to mount NSS volumes: After a migration is completed, NSS volumes with snapshots enabled are not automatically mounted as expected.
See KB Article 7008773.
692680 VSS snapshots are not preserved: VSS snapshots taken by third-party applications on the source workload are not replicated to the target upon migration.
680259 (VMware 4.1) Poor networking performance by traffic-forwarding VMs: In some scenarios, the replica of a workload that is forwarding network traffic (for example, if the workload’s purpose is to serve as a network bridge for NAT, VPN, or a firewall) might show significant network performance degradation. This is related to a problem with VMXNET 2 and VMXNET 3 adapters that have LRO (large receive offload) enabled.
Workaround: Disable LRO on the virtual network adapter. For guidance, see the VMware vSphere 4.1 Release Notes (scroll down to the bulleted item Poor TCP performance...).
Requirements for VMware DRS Cluster support: PlateSpin Migrate supports VMware Clusters with and without DRS enabled, and with any level of DRS (Manual, Partially Automated, or Fully Automated). However, to be a valid migration target, your VMware Cluster must be discovered via vCenter and not by directly inventorying individual ESX servers.
See “Discovery Guidelines for Machine Types and Credentials” in your User Guide.
No software RAID support for Linux workloads: PlateSpin Migrate does not support Linux workloads with volumes on software RAID.
493589 (Windows sources) Non-default per-volume VSS settings are not preserved after migration: This issue is under consideration for an upcoming fix.
548208 Discovery failure if vCenter has an ESX server with no datastore: VMware vCenter discovery fails if an individual ESX server managed by vCenter has no datastore configured.
Workaround: Add a datastore to the ESX server and try again.
505426 (ESX4) No warning or error on wrong vCPU selection: If the number of the requested vCPUs exceeds the number of physical CPUs on the ESX 4 host, the requested number is ignored and the target VM is created with a single vCPU without a warning. This issue is under consideration for an upcoming fix.
604320 (Linux to ESX 4) Problem completing migration if the source OS has autologin or CD automount features enabled: The migration is also affected if you log in to the target during the job’s Configuration step.
Workaround: Disable the autologin and CD automount features on the source; avoid logging in to the target workload prior to the completion of the migration.
619942 Failure to execute a post-migration script with Unicode characters in the filename: If you use Unicode characters in the filename of your post-migration script, the script fails to execute.
Workaround: Use only ASCII characters when naming a post-migration action.
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