Summary

This Knowledge base article provides information about this specific release of Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1

More Information

Supporting Documentation

A listing of technical documents supporting this version of Neverfail Continuity Engine are contained in Knowledgebase article #2993  - v8.1[.n] Neverfail Continuity Engine  - Technical Documentation.

What’s New

Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1 delivers the following key features and benefits:

• Support for Windows Server 2016 Standard/Datacenter
• Support for SQL Server 2016 (new SQL Server plug-in).  
• Updates to SQL Server Plug-in: added support tor SQL 2016 up to SP1, SQL 2014 up to SP2, SQL 2012 up to SP3. SQL 2008R2 SP3, SQL 2008 SP4. Removed interaction/protection (at any level) for 2008/2012 Windows Internal Database.
• Support for Windows Server 2016 IIS v10 (new plug-in).
• Support for Windows Server 2016 FileServer (new plug-in).
• Support for DFS Namespaces on all supported Operating Systems (added to the FileServer plug-in).
• Support for Task Scheduler and protection of scheduled tasks on all supported Operating Systems (added to the System plug-in).
• Improvements in the AMFx service state change reporting/logging.
• When Windows 2016 is installed, many "Trigger" Operating System services start on demand and stop spontaneously rather than running continuously.
• Improved logging that identifies trigger services and prevents logging of the start and stop actions.
• The state of other services monitored by Engine v8.1 are only logged when the state changes resulting in further reduction of unnecessary logging.
• The Evaluation period for Engine v8.1 deployed on a target server is now configured for two days.

Additional Detailed Information

Supporting Documentation

• Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1 Installation Guide
• Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1 Administrator’s Guide

Supported Deployment Infrastructure

• Server roles/applications for which protection will be installed automatically are:
  • SQL Server 2008 SP4, SQL Server 2008 R2 up to SP3, SQL Server 2012 up to SP3, SQL Server 2014 up to SP2, SQL Server 2016 SP1
  • Exchange 2010 SP3, Exchange 2013 up to and including SP1, plus
    • ForeFront for Exchange
    • Symantec Mail Security
  • SharePoint 2007 SP2, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 up to and including SP1
  • File Server including Windows Server 2016
  • Internet Information Server including v10 on Windows Server 2016
  • VMware vCenter Server 6.0 up to and including 6.0 Update 2
  • vCenter Server 5.1 Update 2, vCenter Server 5.1 Update 3, vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1a, vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2, vCenter Server 5.5 Update 3, vCenter Server 5.5 Update 3a, and vCenter Server 5.5 Update 3b
  • VMware View Composer 5.3, VMware View Composer 6.1
• Additional supported plug-ins
  • Neverfail CE for Business Application

Pre-requisites

• For information about pre-requisites for deploying Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1, refer to the following:
  • Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1 Installation Guide

Neverfail Engine Plug-ins

Note: Detailed information about each plug-in is contained in the plug-in's Online Help Knowledgebase file that is available by clicking on the link.

Neverfail plug-ins provide protection for specific installed application configuration data, services, and application data files.  

The following plug-ins are included in this release of Neverfail Continuity Engine and are installed automatically if the application is present:

• Neverfail for Exchange
  • ForeFront
  • Symantec Mail Security
• Neverfail for File Server
• Neverfail for IIS
• Neverfail for SharePoint Server
• Neverfail for SQL Server
• Neverfail for vCenter Server
• System Plug-in  
• Neverfail for vSphere 6.0         
  • VMware vCenter Server
  • VMware Platform Services Controller
  • VMware Authentication Proxy 6.0
  • VMware Update Manager 6.0
  • VMware vPostgres 
  • VMware Composer 5.x and 6.x   

For more information about Neverfail for vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins, please see Knowledgebase article #2807 - 'Neverfail for vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins - Online Help'.

Plug-in Installation

Initial installations of Neverfail Continuity Engine Plug-ins must be performed using the Engine Management Service. Subsequent plug-in re-installations and upgrades may be performed using the Applications: Plug-ins tab of the Neverfail Advanced Client. However, Neverfail recommends that any subsequent plug-in repair installations or upgrades to be performed using Engine Management Service.    

To manually install a Neverfail Continuity Engine Plug-in using the Neverfail Advanced Client, follow the steps below:

1. Unzip the plug-in to the desired location.
2. Launch the Neverfail Advanced Client.    
3. Navigate to Application-> Plugins.
4. Click on the Installbutton.    
5. Click the Browsebutton and navigate to the location of the <plug-in name>.dll file.
6. Click OKto complete the installation.    
7. Repeat this process for each of the five individual plug-ins.

Remove/Uninstall a Plug-in

To remove/uninstall/reinstall a Neverfail Continuity Engine Plug-in using the Neverfail Advanced Client, follow the steps below:

1. Launch the Neverfail Advanced Client.
2. Navigate to Application->Plugins.
3. Select the <plug-in name>.dllto be removed/uninstalled.
4. Click on the Uninstallbutton in the 'Plugins' pane.
5. Click on the Installbutton.
6. Click the Browsebutton and navigate to the location of the <plug-in name>.dll file.
7. Click OKto complete the installation.

Known Limitations

• Engine Management Service will not uninstall a server with an expired license (EN-1315).
• Affects only vCenter Server 6.x protected by Engine 8.1 DR deployments with the DR-node configured with different IP address: Managed ESXi hosts appear as disconnected in vCenter Server/vSphere Client after making DR node active. (EN-2042).
• The Neverfail Continuity Engine .msi installer package is sometimes detected as having untrusted publishers (EN-969).
• The FileServer plug-in bundled with Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1 properly replicates DFS namespaces. The DFS Management Client does not load the namespaces correctly each time.

Fixed Issues

• vPostgreSQL Plugin configured password is incorrectly read from registry (EN-1313).
• Due to the current design, Engine Management Service is not Managment IP aware (only Public IP aware) (EN-1946).
• Some licensing error messages are not useful (EN-967).
• Downgrade of Engine Management Service v8.0 to v7.1 is not supported (TD-82).
• After uninstall of Engine and during Engine deployment on the primary fails with error "Failed to validate credentials. The network name cannot be found" (EN-1602).
• In the event the registry preferences are lost, they will be restored during the Neverfail Continuity Engine Service restart (EN-1447).
• After performing a switchover with VMware Platform Services Controller installed, the user must restart their browser and re-login to the vSphere Web Client v6.0 (EN-1310).
• The Neverfail Continuity Engine – Configure Server wizard is missing the management page instructions and help (EN-1854).

Known Issues

Engine Management Service

• Latched Rules should be displayed in the EMS UI with only one "On Failure Action" drop-down field (EN-2023).
• Time response is too short for delete service. Command response not received in time (EN-2003).
• With SQL Plug-in + SQL 2014 & In-Memory Tables may result in an OFFLINE DB state during "In Recovery" state (EN-329). 
• If the targets for network monitoring are not configured, the network status shows -1 missed pings (EN-704).
• Trying to add a 6.7 pair/trio in 7.1 EMS UI protected servers list fails with an error.  Workaround: Restart Neverfail Web Services on the active server. (EN-1354)
• Downloading the Advanced Client from EMS silently fails in Chrome (EN-1836).
• Virtual Bytes rule triggered at every check (EN-859).
• The Engine Management Service MSI repair mode fails to operate properly (EN-1389).
• Neverfail Continuity Engine does not allow a user to create a VM (Secondary) server when only a Primary and Tertiary server are present (EN-508). 

Install/Uninstall

• DHCP-set gateway and DNS servers present on Secondary-HA post-cloning/configuration (EN-1996).
• Neverfail Engine fails to uninstall on the Tertiary server (EN-1589).
• Upgrading from v6.7.0 to v7.1 fails with the error message "Failed looking-up Shut-down state" (EN-1327).
• If the Engine is running, a new license is added to the list of licenses. If the Engine is stopped, it replaces the list of licenses (EN-902).
• Neverfail Engine requires that Windows Feature SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support be enabled prior to installing Neverfail Engine (EN-2473).

Administration

• When a trio is installed and the Secondary server becomes dead or deleted, you must reinstall the entire trio (EN-508).
• LogCollector.exe - The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception (EN-2011).
• Downloading the Advanced Management Client from the Engine Managment Service silently fails in Chrome (EN-1836).
• The SysTray icon fails to display on the Secondary/passive server (EN-2628)

Install/Uninstall Information

Installation instructions are found in the following document:

• Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1 Installation Guide 

Uninstalling Engine Management Service

1. Stop the Engine Management Service. 
2. From the Control Panel, uninstall Engine Management Service. Note: If you receive a popup warning about another process accessing a log, start Task Manager and terminate any instances of nfremoteexec.exe 

Applies To

Neverfail Continuity Engine v8.1

Related Information

None

KBID-2992