PlateSpin Portability Suite 8.1.2 Release Notes

November 9, 2009

1.0 About This Release

These release notes apply to both PlateSpin® Portability Suite products, PlateSpin® Migrate and PlateSpin® Protect.

Version 8.1.2 is the follow-on release after version 8.1.1, featuring:

  • Support for migrating Solaris* SPARC* 10 (U4 and U7) workloads

  • Capability to migrate and protect Windows Server* 2008 domain controllers

  • A number of bug fixes (see Bug Fixes)

For information about previous (8.1.x) releases, see the following documents:

2.0 Bug Fixes

The following are major bugs fixed in version 8.1.2:

  • 542939, 525166: Under certain circumstances, live file-based data transfer throughput was lower than that in prior releases.

  • 530042: In the Services step of a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista* migration in Wizard mode, the Automatic (Delayed Start) option was dimmed (unavailable for selection).

  • 530041: Erratic behavior occurred when working in the Transfer Services step of the Portability Suite Client in Wizard mode. In particular, deselecting the Stop option in the top pane caused the Portability Suite Client to crash.

  • 533848: Workload migrations to VMware* ESX Servers that were discovered via a vCenter Server would fail during the Creating Virtual Machine step.

  • Inaccessible vCenter*-affiliated ESX servers caused the entire discovery operation to fail. Inaccessible ESX servers are now skipped in order to complete the discovery.

  • 530062: Linux Volume Group information was missing in the conversion wizard’s Storage Layout Configuration (Disks) interface.

  • 529612: When launched from within a localized version of the Image Browser utility, integrated help appeared only in English.

  • 534827: SMTP notifications did not function in localized versions of the product.

  • 541588, 547364: Incremental replications occasionally failed to remove files on the target workload, compromising full synchronization.

  • 541406: HP* NC532i Dual Port 10GbE NICs were not properly detected during workload migration jobs.

  • 533304: P2P jobs failed with the error Object reference not set to an instance of an object. These failures occurred during attempts to install drivers with malformed INF information.

  • 537857: Citrix* XenServer* discovery failed with a Failed to compare two elements in the array error. The issue was related to malformed VBD data (not critical to our operation) stored in the server.

3.0 Known Issues

  • Portability Suite Server installer not enforcing the minimum disk space requirement: In some situations the Server installation program might fail to properly safeguard problems on hosts that do not meet the minimum disk space requirement. To avoid installation problems, make sure your Portability Suite Server host meets system requirements stated in your installation documentation. In particular, make sure that the host has a minimum 10 GB of disk space. See your Installation Guide.

  • 525787 vNetworking distributed switches ignored when working with vCenter 4: A recently discovered issue fails to properly detect VMware vNetworking Distributed Switches, preventing any migration operation from using them. This issue is under investigation.

  • Migration problem to a VMware ESX 4 server in a VMware cluster: A recently discovered issue might prevent a migration to an ESX 4 server from using the correct HA and DRS settings if that server is a Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster member. If the VMware HA feature reboots the target VM during the migration process, the migration job fails. If a fully automated DRS attempts a vMotion* operation on the target VM during the migration process, the migration might experience problems with network connectivity. No problems are expected with migrations to DRS clusters whose VM migration automation levels are set to Partially Automated or Manual. This issue is currently under investigation.

  • 506154 Special characters in ESX datastore names causing migration problems: Special characters (such as #, +, and =) in the name of an ESX datastore prevent Portability Suite from interacting with the ESX server, throwing an error Failed to put file from c:\xxxxx to http://xxxxx ... Unable to write file to the transport connection: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine. To work around this issue, eliminate special characters in your ESX datastore name, rediscover that ESX target, and rerun the job.

  • 509713 Inaccurate progress report for certain migrations and replications: The progress bar might be inaccurate for very long-running (more than 24 hours) migrations or replications. The issue is under investigation.

  • 502778 Failure discovering dual-boot Windows Server 2003 workloads: If your Windows Server* 2003 workload has Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista* volumes, the discovery of that workload might fail with an Access denied error. This is an issue in the Windows Server 2003 operating system. For details, see Knowledge Base Article Q21167.

  • 503466 Failure to display correct RAM size on Windows 2008/Vista x86 workloads: Upon discovering a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista workload on x86 platforms, Portability Suite reports a maximum of 4 GB RAM on that workload, even if Physical Address Extension (PAE) is properly enabled. This is a display issue and does not impact the product’s ability to interact with the workload. For details, see Knowledge Base Article Q21163.

  • 509159 Failure to discover a SLES workload with a default SUDO configuration: Portability Suite requires sudo to be properly configured before the product can begin interacting with the server. For details, see Knowledge Base Article Q21162.

  • 510409 Problem migrating a Windows Server 2003 (x64) workload with a German OS to Citrix XenServer 4.1: A recently discovered issue might cause the migration of a workload in this specific configuration to stall at the end of the migration process. The completion of the job might require some user intervention. For details, see Knowledge Base Article Q21162.

  • 515761 Protected workloads that use VSS Block-based Live Transfer not picking up volume additions or removals: After running a Windows workload protection job that uses the new VSS Block-based Transfer Component, further volume additions or removals are not monitored, even if the protection job is resubmitted. To work around the issue, uninstall the VSS Block-based Transfer Component, make the required volume changes, reinstall the VSS Block-based Transfer Component, and then rerun the protection job.

  • 516878 Unable to use VSS Block-based Live Transfer method to protect volumes with no drive letters: Currently you can use the VSS Block-based Live Transfer method to protect only volumes that are a assigned a drive letter. To work around the issue, assign a drive letter to all volumes that need protection. This issue is under investigation.

  • Citrix XenServer 5 VMs appear as machines with an unknown OS: The discovery of a VM on a Citrix XenServer 5, following the discovery of the XenServer 5 host itself, might cause the VM to appear as a machine with an Unknown OS tag. This results in the Prepare for Synchronization command being unavailable in the required item’s context menu. As a workaround, use the semi-automated virtualization process, where the system regards the target VM (booted with the PlateSpin ISO boot image) as a physical machine.