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Hitachi Data Instance Director v6.7.2 Release Notes

 About this document

This document (RN-93HDID018-13, December 2018) provides late-breaking information about Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID) Version 6.7.2. It includes information that was not available at the time the technical documentation for this product was published, as well as a list of known problems and solutions.

Intended audience

This document is intended for customers and Hitachi Vantara partners who license and use Hitachi Data Instance Director.

About this release

This release is a maintenance release that resolves known problems, all installers have been incremented to the 6.7.2 release.

Upgrading the software

IMPORTANT: Prior to upgrade please refer to the upgrade section of the user guide for guidance.

Some features that were in version 5.5.x are currently unavailable in version 6.7.2. It is important to check all features being used are available prior to upgrade. Again, please refer to the user guide for details.

Only versions 6.0.x and later can be upgraded to version 6.7.2. If running an earlier version, please upgrade to version 6.0.0 or later prior to upgrading to 6.7.2.

Please note that all HDID nodes must be upgraded to at least 6.7.0, however it is possible to have a mix of 6.7.0, 6.7.1 and 6.7.2 nodes, however ideally all nodes should be on the same version.

Before upgrading unmount any mounted snapshots.

DO NOT upgrade while replications are in the process of pairing. Any active replications must be in the paired state before upgrade is carried out.

After you complete the upgrade installation on the master, upgrade all other nodes.

For full details on upgrade paths refer to the upgrade path matrix by clicking on “View Full Specifications” here: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/products/data-protection/data-instance-director.html#tech-specifications

System requirements

Refer to:

https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/products/data-protection/data-instance-director.html#tech-specifications

For information about the supported operating systems and hardware requirements.

Resolved Problems in 6.7.2

The following issues have been resolved in this release:

ZEN-25452       For GAD replications, if the host group IDs match between primary and secondary storage nodes, HDID will now attempt to match the LUN IDs used for the S-VOLs with those of the respective P-VOLs. If this cannot be achieved, then a warning will be logged, and the next available LUN ID will be used.

ZEN-26037       HDIDcmd now accepts a port number as a parameter during login, this allows HDIDcmd to access the master from any node when a non-default port number has been used at install.

ZEN-26071       Improved cleanup of HORCM instances.

ZEN-26309       Improved performance of GAD reevaluation when no volume changes have taken place.

ZEN-26426       Improved handling of error states when attempting to access MS SQL databases

ZEN-26637       Create and Adopt for replications now have the same options available for setting LDEV name, additional host groups and LDEV ID matching.

ZEN-26649       Issues with repurpose mount resolved.

Features and Enhancements Added in HDID 6.7.0

VMware SRM

VMware’s product, Site Recovery Manager (SRM) manages replication between two sites and allows failover of VMs and datastores between sites all managed from vCenter.

SRM can use its own software replication but can also take advantage of array-based replication if the datastores are hosted on capable hardware such as the Hitachi arrays. To enable this, we have provided a Site Recovery Adaptor (SRA) for HDID that uses the HDID API to perform the required actions.

SRA for HDID is shipped alongside HDID and has its own installer and release note. VMware will also host the adaptor on its website for download.

VMware vRO Integration

vRealize Orchestrator is a VMware tool that allows tasks to be automated using workflows. We have produced workflows that automate some HDID tasks such as backing up or restoring a VM. These workflows can be invoked from vSphere allowing a user to invoke HDID tasks straight from the VMware interface. These workflows will also be used by the Hitachi Enterprise Cloud (HEC) product offering data protection as a service.

The HDID vRO integration is shipped alongside HDID in the form of a plugin that is installed on the vRO server. It also has its own release note.

GAD 2DC Swap

HDID can now orchestrate swapping GAD replication on demand.

On demand LUN allocation

HDID is now able to add SVOLs it creates into host groups without having to perform a mount operation. When defining the dataflow additional host groups can be specified, it’s also possible to retrospectively add SVOLs into host groups from the storage screen.

Local Replication Revert

HDID can now use reverse copy to revert local replications (Shadow image and Refreshed Thin Image).

Online user guides

The user guides in html form are now part of the master installation. These user guides can be accessed from the user interface via the help menu. The online user guides are fully indexed and searchable.

Application Handler Improvements

Information about application assets such as databases is now cached on the master to provide a better user experience. The data will be refreshed automatically twice a day or when requested by a user.

This change does not affect backups which use wildcards, as this will still be evaluated at the beginning of the backup to get the latest information.

In addition to this, the application handler API has been reworked, adding consistency across applications and allowing API users to discover application details using the ApplicationNodeHandlers

Improved Oracle database point-in-time recovery

The Oracle database point in time recovery was improved based on the feedback we collected from the field. Here are some of the improvements available in this version:

- RMAN catalog credentials can now be specified directly in the recovery dialog

- A new option allowing you to specify if the database should be opened at the end of the recovery has been introduced. This allows the database administrator to make manual adjustments before the database is opened

- It is now possible to reset the databases memory settings on restore, allowing restores of big production databases to less powerful hardware

- More powerful prechecks for recovery

- More supported scenarios for different backup types

Microsoft SQL improvements

It is now possible to perform restores of host-based Microsoft SQL databases in a state which allow further recovery.  Equivalent to what was already possible with hardware-based backups, the databases will be registered with an existing SQL Server instance and placed in the restoring state (analog to RESTORE DATABASE ... WITH NO RECOVERY). This will allow the Microsoft SQL administrator to manually apply transaction logs. 

Reworked Microsoft Exchange connectivity

The logic how HDID communicates with Microsoft Exchange environments has been reworked. The new logic will be more stable and honor permissions and roles as they are defined in Exchange.

The new logic requires a valid Exchange user which is a member of the "View Organization Management" role.

NOTE: After the upgrade, you must specify the credentials for your Microsoft Exchange application nodes, before you can compile and distribute your Exchange-related data flows. Unless this step is performed, updated clients will not be able to create new backups.

Currently Unsupported Features

The following features are available in 5.x releases but are not currently available in HDID 6.x

Archive to Azure

CIFS backup

File Indexing

Hyper-V backup

Software Mirror

Software snapshots

The following features are available in 5.x releases but are no longer going to be available in HDID moving forward. They are only supported while 5.x versions of HDID meet the standard Hitachi Vantara support criteria.

NDMP

Tape

File Stubbing

Bare Metal Recovery

File Versioning

Block and Track

Exchange Mailbox archiving

Known Problems

Applications

ZEN-24360       After an upgrade of the master, while existing policies and nodes will remain functional, it will not be possible to change or create application nodes or application policies for systems running an old version of the client. Once upgraded the application information will be automatically refreshed on a regular basis. If data displayed is not correct or nodes cannot be created, either use the refresh or rediscover functionality or wait until the scheduled data refresh is complete.

ZEN-21490       Mounting a continuous replication target for an application (e.g. Exchange, SQL, Oracle or SAP) will fail and should not be attempted. Instead use a batch in-system replication (TI or SI) or a TI snapshot for the mount.

Exchange

ZEN-23397       When using multiple Microsoft Exchange DAG environments from the same proxy, it is not possible to protect the best passive copy.

ZEN-22059       Exchange DAG databases must have at least a single passive copy in order for them to be protected when backing up all active databases in a DAG environment.

MS SQL

ZEN-23425       Intermittently an SQL node may fail to be created. If this occurs, please try again.

ZEN-18320       It is only possible to automatically mount/revert and bring up Microsoft SQL server databases if there is only a single database in a backup.

VMware

ZEN-24709       The backup of VMware templates by tag may fail. Backing up by name would be a good workaround.

ZEN-22063       A VMware backup job may report success when it has only partially succeeded. Logs need to be reviewed for warnings and errors to see individual VMs that may have failed.

General

ZEN-25412       In the nodes inventory screen a Windows 2019 server will be labeled incorrectly as a Windows 2016 server.

ZEN-25165       If a directory contains a large number of files the user may not be able to see the individual files they wish to restore. If this is the case the whole directory will need to be restored.

ZEN-19353       If a user doesn't have access to all nodes involved in a job it is possible the user will not be able to see the job in the jobs screen even though logs for the job will be visible.

ZEN-18284       HDID may fail to install its filter driver on Windows 2016. If this happens it will not be possible to use this node to perform live backups / CDP to the repository. Batch backup can be used as an alternative.

ZEN-17674       When creating a node there is an opportunity to add the node to a RBAC resource group. It is however possible to add a node to multiple resource groups. To do this go to the RBAC screens.

Hardware Orchestration

ZEN-24744       Block Nodes should not be removed from the system until all associated backup records have been retired. If the node is removed the backup records will fail to be retired.

ZEN-24701       Triggering a snapshot on the destination side of a replication will fail with 'No operations triggered. Parameters do not match any existing operation.' when triggering it from the RPO report.

ZEN-24599       When a replication is in a paused or swapped state the dataflow will show a warning symbol in error.

ZEN-24227       When naming an LDEV using variables %ORIGIN_LDEV_NAME% or %PRINARY_LDEV_NAME% the call to name the LDEV will fail if the variable resolves to a name that contains special characters other than: (Space) , (Comma) - (Dash) . (Period) / (Forward Slash) : (Colon) @ (Ampersand) \ (Back Slash) _ (Underscore)

ZEN-23513       When renaming an LDEV with a name that contains double underscores, the UI displays the name incorrectly.

ZEN-21914       When creating a Hitachi Block Device node for a VSP G/F 130, 150, 350, 370, 700, 900 the CCI version 01-46-03/02 or later should be used. If an older version of CCI is used the node will not describe itself correctly. This may result in the node being restricted by the license when it shouldn't be.

ZEN-21706       A live replication will not automatically detect new P-VOLs. If new P-VOLs are added the user needs to trigger the replication from the monitor screen.

ZEN-19569       HDID will not delete GAD SVOLs if the user has added additional host groups to them through HDID (e.g. for cross-path) or if additional host groups have been added outside of HDID. Additional LUN paths must be removed prior to deleting the record from HDID.

ZEN-18055       HDID will attempt to provision to a mainframe reserved LDEV ID. Ensure the defined HDID LDEV range avoids these.

ZEN-17556       Attempting to revert a snapshot for an application node will fail if the data flow containing the definition has been deactivated.

ZEN-8881         If the source machine is unavailable it is not possible to revert a snapshot using HDID. In the case of a hardware path classification the source machine does not need to be available, but it is important to unmount the volume before performing the revert.            

Installation/Upgrade

ZEN-21493       If an HDID master node is installed in a clustered environment please contact customer support for licensing help.

User Interface

ZEN-25569       The dashboard job count incorrectly includes internal jobs that are not visible in the jobs screen.         

ZEN-23564       It is possible to rename a floating snapshot from the user interface, but this has no effect

ZEN-21864       Changes to a node group contents are reflected in the monitor screen before rules are redistributed. The monitor screen should show the nodes from the last rules distribution.

Copyrights and licenses

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