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RELEASE SUMMARY

This document contains the release notes for DATASTOR Shield™ Enterprise Protection Server version 9.0.

WHAT'S NEW

Below is a list of the enhancements that have been added to the version 9.0 release since the 8.0 release of the software.

Performance Enhancements*

• New Store architecture significantly improves performance of store tasks and protection plans.

• Store Purge tasks run up to ten times faster that in previous versions of the software.

• Store Copy and Verify tasks run up to four times faster than in previous versions of the software.

• Protection Plans run up to 30% faster than in previous versions of the software.

• Previous-version ("legacy") stores can easily be converted by clicking a button on the store's Property page

*Please see important upgrade information in the Installation and Upgrade Notes section below.

Slipstream Restore

• A new Scheduled Restore task-type allows for keeping a mirror image of a computer (or VM) for standby recovery or DR testing.

Windows Scheduler 2.0 Integration

• Allows for advanced triggers, actions, and conditions to be configured for scheduled tasks.

• Scheduled tasks can be executed from Powershell scripts.

• A task can be configured to wake a computer from sleep or hibernation, or a task can be attached to a specific system event. For example, a Purge task could be configured to run when disk space gets low.

Standalone Tape Drive Support

• Allows for vaulting to standalone tape devices with similar capability as the current tape autoloader support.

LTFS Integration

• Use LTO tape for storing archived data.

• Use LTO tape as a restore target.

Volume Sets

• A new tape grouping called a Volume Set lets you group tapes together. Vaulting tasks are associated with Volume Sets rather than tape devices as in previous releases of the software. More than one vaulting task can target a volume set.

Storage node redesign

• The layout of the Storage node in the Archive Manager user interface is more logical.

VMware Groups (requires unlimited/site license)

• VMware Groups allow for automatic deployment of Protection Plans based on the VMware group a given VM is associated with.

• A light-weight policy engine monitors the vCloud for new VMs and when detected, a Protection Plan is automatically deployed.

RESOLVED ISSUES

Below is the list of issues that have been resolved in each publicly released build.

Resolved in build 9.0.1650.1 (recommended upgrade for users)

• Sets default schedule task priority to 'Normal' for improved backup performance

• Added aiqutil command option to bulk update schedule task priority

• Fixed issue with intermittent restore failures on large files introduced in build 9.0.839.1 (to address this issue users of build 9.0.839.1 or greater should upgrade to build 9.0.1650.1 or later)

• Fixed issue with code signing SRE component

• Various other product stability enhancements

• Synchronized SRE with this release

Resolved in build 9.0.1500.1

• Added support for LTO8 Tape Format (including support for M8 up-formatted media)

• Added support for bandwidth throttling for Store Copy tasks

• Improved Checkup Report to better show summary statistics, highlight partial or incomplete archives, better handle read-only archives in error state

• Fixed issue with Checkup Report of Task Scheduler Refussed Request (0x800710e0) and Task Alread Running (0x0041301) errors

• Various other product stability enhancements

Resolved in build 9.0.1315.1

• Windows Server 2016 setup and installation support (including updated translations for French, German, Italian)

• Fixed issue with inconsistencies creating a store vault (for tape or cloud)

Resolved in build 9.0.1221.1

• Fixed issue where SQL 2016 databases were not detected

Resolved in build 9.0.1130.1

• Fix for issue: 'Unable to contact the update server at this time. Please try again later.'

Resolved in build 9.0.1109.1

• Updated translations for French, German, and Italian

Resolved in build 9.0.1101.1

• Disabled multi-threaded restore for older platforms (Windows 2008 R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1 and older) due to system hang issues - see also https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2740374

• Checkup Report enhancements

  • New option to email the Checkup Report to add alternate recipients when errors or warnings are detected by the daily Checkup Report. This is helpful, for example, to automatically send the Checkup Report to a ticketing system or escalate the issue to management.

  • A new summary section at the top of the report will highlight key stats like how many plans are configured to run and how many actually ran and if there were any errors encountered during the last run. The compact summary is designed for quick review, so if everything is running normally, there’s no need to dive into the full report.

  • The Servers not Reachable section is a short list of servers that are configured, but not reachable during checkup report generation and do not have any plan results within the last 24 hours. These may need immediate attention.

  • Elapsed plan runtime has been added to the Protection Plan Summary section.  Plans with unusually long or short runtimes can be more quickly identified.

  • The Store section now includes statistics for Total Managed data, New and Changed content and New stored data as well as a column showing total quarantined items, content repaired, and new quarantined items. A sudden increase in quarantined items can be an early indication of issues with storage or network devices.

  • The Store Task section includes a short description of the work done; content verified, disk space reclaimed from a Purge tasks, or bytes copied to another store; useful for confirming certain tasks are completing their expected workload.

  • A new Archive Summary section shows the status of every archive and includes information about the last known restore point and current status: Available, Verified, Unavailable, etc. Archives older than a day (midnight on the previous day) are highlighted to better show those that may be unexpectedly out-of-date.

• Fixed issue where SRE was not correctly detecting BIOS boot environment on dual boot images

• Fixed issue where SRE percent complete control triggered exception

• Added common Intel Pro v21.0 Ethernet Drivers to 32 bit and 64 bit SRE ISO images

• Disabled "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" for SRE boot

• Improved cache usage for plan histories

• Improved support for ReFS managed volumes and stores

Resolved in build 9.0.986.1

• Improved error handling for multi-part restore

• Added path size and filename size counters and max values for tracking long path names

• Fixed issue where Copy Task was reporting file size errors for encrypted files

• Fixed x64 boot failure. Removed DotNet package which was causing BSOD on some systems

• Fixed x64 SRE startup failure. Added correct platform version for SREWizard and aiqremote64.exe

Resolved in build 9.0.906.1

• Improved suspend/resume handling for Copy and Verify tasks during Purge operations

• Fixed issue where "Waiting on access to the store" message was not being cleared after purge completes

• Fixed issue where an unexpected overwrite of index was detected

• Improved report of errors and warnings during Verify task

• Added recheck of Quarantined Items and restore/repair during Verify task

• Added read retries for non-eof zero length reads which was causing blobs to be quarantined under certain conidition (not common)

• Fixed issue where large missing.catalog results were not being displayed

• Improved Purge task performance when deleting content under exclusive store lock

• Improved handling of corrupt catalogs and reference files during Purge task

• Disabled rebuilds of Index2 during verify to improve baseline store Verify performance

• Added license check for VMware groups. VMware Groups feature is now only supported for "unlimited" "production" keys

• Reverted redirect URL's for SRE and product Update to us bypass redirection. This was causing SRE and Update failures.

• Added new System Recovery Environment (SRE) based on WinPE 10 (Windows 10) for improved bare metal device detection and handling

• Fixed issue where erroneous restore point index updates were being reported during Store Verify task

• Fixed SRE crash when getting drive layout on WinPE 10

• Fixed issue with baseline store Copy task running out of memory under certain conditions

• Added recycle bin cleanup report to Purge log

• Improved Purge log to more clearly show space reclaimed

• Fixed issue where certain extended Ascii codes in filenames were being filtered out

• Fixed issue where DEL chars in filenames were being filtered out. The DEL char is a valid Windows file name character

Resolved in build 9.0.839.1

• 8.0 purge tasks returning error after upgrade to 9.0

• Delta blobs with missing base are not quarantined when using MFT Fast Content Scan

• Updated translations for German, French and Italian

• Incorrect where-to-buy link

• Enhancement: Add Activated On section to the UI to easily identify customers that are in support

• Cannot quarantine blob - bad syntax

• Repaired quarantined items in version 8 store not getting green flag

• Fix for terms referencing SSL which should say 'Use secure connection'

• RunTimePhase pass-through parameters need translation

• Fix for "Everything" plan failing with file not found errors

• Fix API not supported on Windows 2000

• Enhancement for large file multi-part threaded restore

• Fix for Change Journal being checked on non-NTFS volumes

• Fix for excluded volumes that were still being selected for volume snapshots

• Fix for Store marked as converted after warnings

• Fix for bad chars written to XML

• Some controls not loading all translated text

• Add VMware Browser resources DLL to EPS/SPS setups

Resolved in build 9.0.717.1 (first 9.0 public release)

• 146 issues have been resolved since version 8.0

Installation and Upgrade Notes

You must be running version 5.0 or later DATASTOR Shield™ Enterprise Protection Server prior to upgrading.

1. Download DATASTOR Shield™ Enterprise Protection Server to a folder on your hard drive and then double-click the downloaded file to begin the installation/upgrade.

2. Follow the installation/upgrade wizard prompts to completion.

Important upgrade information

To take advantage of the new Store architecture, existing stores must be converted. To convert a store simply open its Properties page from the Archive Manager user interface and click the Improve storage performance button and then the Convert now button. The Improve storage performance button is only visible for stores that have not been converted or have only been partially converted.

Stores with Store Copy tasks must be of the same architecture. In other words, if you convert one store then the other must be converted too. Also, if the source and destination stores are on different Archive Manager servers the following applies: Whereas in the past it was recommended to pull data from the source store, with the new architecture it is recommended to push the data to the destination store. This is because the data is verified prior to copying and the verification is fastest if done locally. Once a store task has been created the source and destination stores cannot be swapped so a new task must be created.

A new System Recovery Environment (SRE) 9.0 image file must be used for system recovery (BMR) after store conversion. To download the 9.0 SRE image, open Archive Manager, then 'Save System Recovery Environment'. If you have previously downloaded one of the 8.0 SRE image files, you will have to remove the SRE image files from the SRE folder before the new 9.0 SRE image file becomes available for download. Please use Windows Explorer to navigate to the software installation folder, then the SRE subfolder. Move or delete the 8.0 SRE image files, then return to 'Save System Recovery Environment' and the SRE 9.0 image file will become available for download.

Minimum System Recommendations