These release notes apply to both PlateSpin® Migrate and PlateSpin Protect.
PlateSpin Portability Suite version 8.1.3 is the follow-on release after version 8.1.2. It features improved driver support for Dell*, HP*, Fujitsu*, and Cisco* UCS systems, functional enhancements, and a list of bug fixes.
For information about previous 8.1.x releases, see the Previous Releases section on the PlateSpin Portability Suite documentation Web site.
This release features updated drivers to better support workload migrations to Dell, HP, Fujitsu, and Cisco UCS hardware. In addition, you can now use a unique, specific ISO boot image for the following hardware types:
Dell
Fujitsu
Cisco UCS
The boot images are available for download from either Novell® or PlateSpin download sites.
This release features support for creating eagerzeroedthick virtual disks on VMware* ESX* 4.
To enable this feature, go to your Portability Suite Server host. In the ..\PlateSpin Portability Suite Server\Web directory, open the Web.config file with a text editor, locate the CreateEagerZeroedThickDisksForESX4 attribute, and change its value to true. When you have finished, save and close the Web.config file.
NOTE:Enabling this feature causes a significant increase in the time it takes to create the target VM. For example, creating a VM with an 80 GB virtual disk might take approximately 20 to 30 minutes.
The following is a list of bugs fixed for this release.
565286 Missing system volume information in image capture jobs: System volume information is now properly captured for some Windows* 2000 systems, resulting in a No system volume included error.
555880 Slow job response in migrations to vCenter-affiliated ESX servers: Attempting to set up a migration job to an ESX server managed by a heavily loaded vCenter* no longer results in degraded client performance.
Failure to preserve drive letters of removable devices: When migrating or protecting a workload with removable devices (such as a floppy disk or a CD-ROM drive), the respective drive letters are now preserved upon booting in the target environment.
Improper handling of network connection names: When migrating or protecting Windows workloads, network connections associated with real network interfaces no longer default to Windows Standard names. For example, My Custom Network Connection no longer becomes Network Connection 2 in the target environment.
Configuration Service failing to load on a heavily loaded VM: When under extreme load, Windows failed to start the PlateSpin Configuration Service in the time allotted. The fix introduced in this release includes the capability to delay the start of the Configuration Service until the load on the host is more favorable.
NOTE:Use this procedure only if you encounter this problem.
To activate the feature, go to your Portability Suite Server host. In the ..\PlateSpin Portability Suite Server\Web directory, open the Web.config file with a text editor, locate the delayConfigServiceStart attribute, and change its value to true. When you have finished, save and close the Web.config file.
Failure to assign volume drive letters after a Restore or a Test Restore job: This issue, although it was unreproducible in-house, has beed addressed.
Failures in restoring WMI during a Restore or a Test Restore job: Occasionally, when under load, WMI failed to load properly on the target servers. This issue has been addressed by changes in how VMware Tools are installed and when reboots are performed during the configuration process.
Failure to install VMware Tools on specific systems: In some cases, the VSS component of VMware Tools conflicted with other software packages installed on specific workloads. The fix introduced in this release includes the capability to automatically skip the installation of the VSS component when migrating an affected workload into a VMware environment.
To activate the feature, go to your Portability Suite Server host. In the ..\PlateSpin Portability Suite Server\Web directory, open the Web.config file with a text editor, locate the ConfigService.VMWareToolsInstallRuntimeParameters attribute, and change its value to REMOVE=VSS. When you have finished, save and close the Web.config file.
Erroneous report of VMware installation failure: When under extreme load, the VMware Tools installation step no longer reports a failure when it is actually successful.
Restore and Test Restore Jobs occasionally stalling under load: When under extreme load, Restore and Test Restore jobs no longer stall without any error or warning.
527302 Incorrect job step labels when migrating into Citrix XenServer 5.5: In the Jobs view, some substeps of a migration job into a Citrix* XenServer* 5.5 target are no longer labeled or despite the migration running successfully.
568103 Failure to run the Image Operations tool on 64-bit Windows systems: A packaging issue caused the Image Operations tool (ImageOperations.exe) to fail to start on a 64-bit Windows environment. Going forward, the tool is supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms.
Scalability issues when working with heavily loaded ESX servers: When migrating or protecting workloads to ESX servers that were under extreme load, the product occasionally ran into intermittent issues, affecting the ability of the jobs to complete. This release includes a number of fixes that address this scenario.
No new known issues have been logged as of the time of this release.
For a cumulative list of known issues logged since the 8.1 release, see the previous release notes:
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