PlateSpin Recon 3.7 Release Notes

October 14, 2009

1.0 Overview

The information in this Release Notes file pertains to Novell® PlateSpin® Recon 3.7.

For instructions on downloading and upgrading to PlateSpin Recon 3.7, see “Upgrading PlateSpin Recon” in the Novell PlateSpin Recon 3.7 Getting Started Guide.

For administrative tasks, see the Novell PlateSpin Recon 3.7 User Guide.

This product contains undocumented utilities that Novell Support might use to diagnose or correct problems.

2.0 New Features in This Release

PlateSpin Recon 3.7 includes the following new features and enhancements:

  • Identifying the disk type that is attached to the workload based on the storage type such as iSCSI, Local, or SAN.

  • Support for inventory and monitoring on IBM* AIX* 5.2, 5.3, and 6.1.

  • Collecting data for new disk utilization counters, such as:

    • VC_DiskPercentIdleTime
    • VC_DiskTotalSpaceGB
    • VC_DiskUsedSpaceGB
    • VC_DiskFreeSpaceGB
    • VC_DiskPercentUsedSpace
    • VC_DiskPercentFreeSpace
    • VC_DiskPartitionedSpaceGB
    • VC_DiskUnpartitionedSpaceGB
    • VC_DiskPercentPartitionedSpace
    • VC_DiskPercentUnpartitionedSpace
    • PhysicalDisk_CurrentDiskQueueLength
    • PhysicalDisk_PercentIdleTime
    • PhysicalDisk_TotalSpaceGB
    • PhysicalDisk_UsedSpaceGB
    • PhysicalDisk_FreeSpaceGB
    • PhysicalDisk_PercentUsedSpace
    • PhysicalDisk_PercentFreeSpace
    • PhysicalDisk_PartitionedSpaceGB
    • PhysicalDisk_UnpartitionedSpaceGB
    • PhysicalDisk_PercentPartitionedSpace
    • PhysicalDisk_PercentUnpartitionedSpace

    For detailed information about the counters collected by PlateSpin Recon for the supported platforms, see Platform Counters in the PlateSpin Recon User Guide.

  • Collecting data for new volume utilization counters, such as:

    • VC_LogicalDiskUsedMegabytes
    • VC_LogicalDiskFreeMegabytes
    • VC_LogicalDiskPercentUsedSpace
    • VC_LogicalDiskPercentFreeSpace
    • LogicalDisk_UsedMegabytes
    • LogicalDisk_FreeMegabytes
    • LogicalDisk_PercentUsedSpace
    • LogicalDisk_PercentFreeSpace

    For detailed information about the counters collected by PlateSpin Recon for the supported platforms, see Platform Counters in the PlateSpin Recon User Guide.

  • Two new Inventory reports related to core count are available:

    • Core Count Report: Used to calculate all physical cores and virtual cores (vCPU).

    • Physical Core Count Report: Used to calculate physical cores only.

3.0 Known Issues

3.1 The storage type for NFS volumes on Windows is displayed as "Unknown"

When you view the properties of a Windows machine in the Data Center Explorer, the storage type for the NFS volumes is displayed as Unknown instead of NFS.

Workaround: None.

3.2 The normalization speed for IBM AIX machine is incorrect

The normalization speed for the Power PC processors of IBM AIX machines is not calculated, and it is displayed as 1 in the AIX machine properties page. This value is used in consolidation planning and reports.

Workaround: After inventorying the AIX machine, manually set the correct value for the processor’s Normalized Speed:

  1. In Data Center Explorer, right-click the AIX machine, then click Properties.

  2. Click the Custom Fields tab.

  3. Change the value for Normalized Speed.

  4. Click OK.