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Hitachi Ops Center Protector v7.5 Release Notes

 

About this document

This document (RN-99PRT000-16, August 2022) provides late-breaking information about Hitachi Ops Center Protector (Protector) Version 7.5.0. 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 Ops Center Protector.

Accessing product downloads

Product software, drivers, and firmware downloads are available on Hitachi Vantara Support Connect:  https://support.hitachivantara.com/.

Log in and select Product Downloads to access the most current downloads, including important updates that may have been made after the release of the product.

About this release

This release introduces new features and resolves multiple known problems.

Starting with version 7.0, Hitachi Data Instance Director is called Hitachi Ops Center Protector.

Hitachi Ops Center suite includes the following software:

·         Ops Center Administrator

·         Ops Center Analyzer

·         Ops Center API Configuration Manager

·         Ops Center Automator

·         Ops Center Common Services

·         Ops Center Protector

See the Ops Center documentation portal for more information.

Upgrading the software

Important notes

Before upgrading, see the upgrade section in the user guide for guidance.

Some features included in v6.x are no longer available in version 7.x. Therefore, it is important to check that all features you are using are available before upgrading. See the "Features no longer available since version 7.0" in the New features and Important enhancement section.

Before upgrading, unmount any mounted snapshots.

Do not upgrade while replications are pairing. Any active replications must be in the paired state before you start the upgrade.

For full details on upgrade paths, see the upgrade path matrix by clicking on “View Full Specifications” here: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us...protector.html

Upgrading to Protector 7.5.0

v7.1 and later can be upgraded to v7.5.0. If running an earlier version, you must upgrade to version 7.1 or later before upgrading.

Due to the changes to the Jobs system introduced in 7.5 it is necessary to recompile and distribute the rules so that the jobs have their correct titles. Additionally, the Jobs history will be reset on upgrade.

Product package contents

Product

Revision

Release type

Ops Center Protector

7.5.0-00

Full package

Resolved Problems

Problem ID

Description

ZEN-48147

Resolved an issue where a restore from HCP could incorrectly result in an error stating that there was nothing to restore.

ZEN-47896

Improved Unicode handling of VSS-related error messages

ZEN-40883

It is now possible to mount newly created offline backups of Oracle RAC databases. Old offline backups of RAC environments can be restored, manually by performing an OS level mount and bringing the ASM disk groups and database online manually.

ZEN-45428

Adopted SVOLs using ADR are now able to be deleted once the replication is torn down.

ZEN-43321

All hardware block backup jobs now appear, even when the job fails early.

ZEN-47420

Fixed an issue when trying to pause an already paused Oracle batch replication results in an error.

ZEN-47041

If the ISM managing the primary side of a replication is down attempting to swap the replication is now possible

ZEN-47151

LDEV expansion can be performed while other operations are active on the replication, for example swap, revert, resync, etc. This now works as expected.

ZEN-47786

Fixed an issue with hardware replication (re)synchronization if it would take longer than ~1hr (assuming default Protector configuration).

ZEN-47739

Resolved an issue preventing mount of hardware snapshots/replications to VMware VMs when a datastore is specified.

ZEN-47828

Resolved an issue where an inter-repository backup could fail with the error 'Error: Replication aborted' if there was sparseness at the end of the file being replicated to the second repository.

ZEN-48767

Resolved an issue where expansion of replicated LDEVs may fail for replications created in versions prior to 7.4.0.

ZEN-48588

Resolved an issue where replication jobs fail for adopted replications, if they involve one or more known existing S-VOLs for which there is no existing replication pair.

ZEN-47946

Resolved an issue where the GRR report was producing excessive logs with large attachments which resulted in memory issues with the Log Handler process.

ZEN-48327

Resolved an issue with collecting data on remote replications for the GRR.

ZEN-47993

Resolved an issue with pre and post scrips associated with Hardware Orchestration activities. A script that fails to run or returns a non-zero return code will result in the sequence being aborted.

ZEN-48867

Resolved an issue with timeouts observed when modifying Block Device nodes based on storage systems with a large number of internal parity groups.

ZEN-48715

In restore UI and storage UI, If VMs are more than page setting value, next page now works as expected

New features and important enhancements added in 7.5.0

Features and enhancements

Overview

Enhanced Jobs system

Jobs are now named more consistently and clearly and contain related tasks keeping all activities under one job. Additionally, jobs are now retained in the jobs screen over a restart

Active Data Reduction

ADR can now be enabled on SVOLS. Options include to match the PVOL settings as well as setting compression and deduplication independently of the source volumes.

Force Suspend

In certain error states both the PVOLs and SVOLs in a replication can become blocked. This feature allows the user to recover from this by converting blocked volumes into writable volumes from either the PVOL or SVOL side.

SQL AG

Protector now provides a better solution for protecting Microsoft SQL Server's Always On Availability Groups. To that end, they can now be discovered and are represented as nodes, similar to clustered SQL Server instances.

When configuring the backup policy, you have multiple options to define which replica should be used for during backup:

- Selected replica will allow you to choose a specific replica that should always be used, regardless of its current role. 

- Primary will always protect the replica that is the primary at the time when the backup is performed. 

- SQL Server Backup Preference will honor the backup preference setting the database administrator configured for the availability group in SQL Server.

 

Block-based backups list the Availability Group Node as source node. Making it easy to locate block-based Availability Group backups regardless of which replica was used for a particular backup.

What is supported

- Availability Groups consisting of standalone or clustered instances

- Backup of individual or all databases of an Availability Group

- Various Backup preference settings as described above

- Mount database backups to existing SQL Server instances

Limitations

- Readscale and Distributed Availability Groups are not supported

- Availability Groups utilizing Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) are not supported

- It is not possible to revert availability group backups.

Oracle mount to Application node

It is now possible to use Oracle application nodes, as a target for mounts when restoring Oracle related backups. Previously Oracle backups were restored to OS Nodes, with this change the behavior is consistent across all applications.

Enhanced Data Flow and Policy RBAC

Data Flows and Policies now use the same RBAC system as nodes. The previous system will continue to work for ungraded systems to allow users to transition to the new scheme over time.

Windows 2022 support

Windows 2022 is now supported for both Master and Clients. Additionally, filesystem, SQL and Hyper-V backups are supported.

System requirements

Ops Center Protector system requirements

For information about the supported operating systems and hardware requirements, see:

https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/products/data-protection/ops-center-protector.html

CCI Version requirements

The recommended minimum version of CCI to support all capabilities in this release is:

01-65-03

Ops Center API Configuration Manager Version requirements

In order to take advantage of the GRR feature the following version is recommended:

Hitachi Ops Center API Configuration Manager 10.8.0-01

However, Protector has been qualified with 10.6.x also.

Supported storage systems and microcode/firmware versions

Ops Center Protector supports:

·         Hitachi VSP E Series with microcode versions:

o   93-03-2x

o   93-04-02

·         Hitachi VSP 5100, 5500, 5100H, 5500H models with microcode versions:

o   90-04-07-x

o   90-05-02-x

·         Hitachi VSP F350, F370, F700, F900 and VSP G130 (select APAC markets), G350, G370, G700, G900 models with microcode version:

o   88-07-02-x

·         Hitachi VSP G200, G400, G600, G800 and VSP F400, F600, F800 models with microcode versions:

o   83-05-39-x

o   83-06-11-x

·         Hitachi VSP G1000, G1500, F1500 models with microcode version:

o   80-06-83-x

·         Hitachi VSP N400, N600, N800 models with microcode version:

o   83-06-11-x

Known problems

VMware

ZEN-47426           After restoring a VMware virtual machine from a hardware snapshot the temporary snapshot created in the datastore may remain. If this is the case it will need to be removed manually.

ZEN-48853           Due to insufficient vSphere permissions, VMware snapshots may contain missing metadata about where original VM was stored. This prevents restores to original location and can prevent all restore options, in some cases.

ZEN-49005           When recovering VMware VM(s), the restore/clone will not recover to a specific resource pool. It will be placed on the host, the resource pool resides on.

SQL

ZEN-46956           Unmounting a block-based SQL Server backup may not cleanly remove the disk from all nodes if the SQL instance moved to another cluster node since mount. Protector will remove the SQL instance and underlying SAN mapping; however, the operating system may still list the disk until it rescans the available disks.

ZEN-47500           Mounting SQL instances on physical disks with multiple volumes, where not all volumes have drive letters assigned, may fail.

Oracle

General

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.

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-35665           If a user deletes a recovery point and this deletion causes the backup to be out of RPO this is not reflected in the RPO report.

ZEN-38909           If the repository stream data is split across multiple volumes (by using symbolic links) the storage details will not show the total capacity of all the volumes.

ZEN-39003           It is possible for a Generation 1 Repository to synthesize a backup if two operations cause data to be backed up at the same time. This can cause the RPO report to show the synthesized data to be out of RPO.

ZEN-40929           When activating multiple data flows it is possible for erroneous compiler errors to be generated. Activating the data flows individually may solve this issue.

ZEN-40955           If multiple versions of a schedule exist and the schedule is used by multiple data flows it is possible for the wrong version of the schedule to be used. To resolve this issue all data flows using that schedule will need to be reactivated.

ZEN-41268           A generation 1 repository doesn't fully support tagging.

ZEN-41792           Exporting very large reports to PDF can fail, when exporting large reports or large numbers of logs using the CSV format is recommended.

ZEN-42974           Reports exported in CSV or JSON format are exported with the Time Zone set to UTC. HTML and PDF exports are done in the same Time Zone as the master node.

ZEN-43969           On SUSE when exporting a report to PDF you may experience an error 'Export job failed'. To resolve this issue the command ' xhost si:localuser:root' will need to be executed to allow the root user access to the desktop.

ZEN-47824           When changing nodes, dataflows or schedules used on existing dataflows, all affected dataflows must be activated manually to ensure the new settings are in effect.

ZEN-48708           If a recovery point contains more than one page of items only the first page can be accessed.

ZEN-48756           Due to the RBAC changes with Dataflows and Policies in 7.5, anyone using the API directly to get a Dataflow or Policy via its ID will have to ensure to encode the ID which now contains special characters.

ZEN-48811           Very large Gen2 Repositories can be slow to start, in an extreme case it can take over 1 hour to start the repository.

ZEN-48892           After upgrading to 7.5 job titles may be incomplete. To resolve the issue the rules will need to be recompiled and distributed.

Hardware Orchestration

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

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

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

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

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-24744           Block Device 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-31564           In a multipath mount the additional host groups on which the ldevs have been mounted are not displayed in the "Record Details" screen accessed via the "Links" panel when viewing the record.

ZEN-32843           If a replication type needs to be changed the operation on the data flow should be deleted and a new one created. Editing the existing operation should be avoided.

ZEN-34065           A GAD with a downstream HUR operation fails if GAD mirror is set to h1 and HUR mirror is set to automatic. The workaround is to manually set the HUR mirror to h2 or h3.

ZEN-34747           When no links appear on active data flows between two given ISMs, those ISMs are not permitted to communicate. This means that if all active data flows are deactivated and the services restarted, teardowns fail as ISMs are unable to send messages to each other. To workaround this distribute any data flow with a link between the two ISMs, this updates the rules allowing the ISMs to communicate and the teardowns to succeed.

ZEN-36277           Swapping a Hardware replication direction does not swap the source and destination nodes in the Block Device Network transfer report. There is no indication the replication has been swapped from this report.

ZEN-42691           The metadata directory specified by the user when setting up a repository or a hardware node does not support a path containing multibyte characters.

ZEN-42777           The 'In Progress' counter on the monitor screen does not include in progress hardware snapshots.

ZEN-47213           In a GAD 3DC with a delta HUR configuration any replications originating from the Tertiary site may fail to trigger.

ZEN-47381           When reverting block-based backups of JFS2 file systems on AIX, the mount may fail after the disks have been reverted. As a workaround, repair or recreate /etc/filesystems, ensure the log volume is correct and mount the filesystem manually.

ZEN-47546           If an unmount fails it's possible that future mount attempts will fail.

ZEN-47689           OS/Host Mounting replication SVOLs fails after a swap (even if swapped backed) unless the replication is resynced after the swap. The mount will fail with an error saying the “Pair matrix is empty

ZEN-47891           Attempting to swap a paused remote replication may fail if the specified direction matches the current direction.

ZEN-48842           When expanding a block host node based on a hostgroup the LDEVs are calculated from a cache and may not reflect any recent changes. To resolve this update the cache for the Block Device node screen.

ZEN-49141           Protector may ignore changes made to a Block Device (or Logical Block Device) configuration file under certain circumstances.

Installation/Upgrade

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

User Interface

ZEN-23513           When renaming an ldev with a name that contains consecutive underscores, the UI displays the name incorrectly

ZEN-42779           Settings on the dataflow are used for initial setup of hardware snapshots and replications. Editing these settings will not affect the deployed setup.

ZEN-47501           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.

Ops Center Integration

ZEN-41689           If the Ops Center URL (hostname/IP) is changed, you must delete the Protector authentication space 'opscenter' and then run the setupcommonservice tool to reregister Protector.

ZEN-41690           If the client secret on Ops Center is reset using csresettrustrelationship.sh, you must run the protector command setupcommonservice --cs-username again before Protector will show online again.

ZEN-48257           An Ops Center user does not logout of Ops Center when logout is triggered from a new tab/window

Documentation

This section lists the user documentation. Product documentation is available on Hitachi Vantara Support Connect: https://knowledge.hitachivantara.com/Documents

Check this site for the most current documentation, including important updates that may have been made after the release of the product.

Document name

Document number

Issue date

Ops Center Protector Quick Start Guide

MK-99PRT001-05

August 2022

Ops Center Protector User Guide

MK-99PRT002-05

August 2022

Ops Center Protector Oracle Application Guide

MK-99PRT003-06

August 2022

Ops Center Protector VMware Application Guide

MK-99PRT04-05

August 2022

Ops Center Protector Hyper-V Application Guide

MK-99PRT008-04

August 2022

Ops Center Protector REST API User Guide

MK-99PRT005-05

August 2022

Ops Center Protector REST API Reference Guide

Cancelled

Available through the UI.

Ops Center Protector REST API Change Log

MK-99PRT007-05

August 2022

Ops Center Protector SQL Application Guide

MK-99PRT009-05

August 2022

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