Summary

This Knowledge base article provides information about this specific release of Neverfail IT Continuity Engine v8.0

More Information

Supporting Documentation

A listing of technical documents supporting this version of Neverfail IT Continuity Engine are contained in KB #2912 - v8.0[.n] Neverfail IT Continuity Engine  - Technical Documentation.

What’s New

Neverfail IT Continuity Engine v8.0 delivers the following key features and benefits:

• Expanded Deployment Options for Neverfail IT Continuity Engine
  • Physical to Physical 
  • Non-VMWare Environments (Hyper-V, Zen, KVM)
  • Manual Cloning
• Improved Management Functions
  • Engine Management Service can now be deployed on a Windows Desktop
  • Faster Web UI
  • All the major management functions have been ported over to the Engine Management Service from the legacy Java based client which include the following:
    • Services Tab which allows the users to manage protected services; define, monitor and select recovery rules for protected services
    • Data Tab which is used to define the file filters and monitor the data/replication traffic including WAN compression statistics.
    • Shadows which is used to control VSS shadow copies as part of the DRM module.
    • Replication management actions
    • Application control actions
    • Shadows management actions
• v6.7[.n] to v8.0 Upgrade Process
  • Upgrade any existing Neverfail Heartbeat v6.7 deployment to v8.0 easily via a simple wizard
  • Backward Compatibility
  • Engine Management Service can manage a mixture of v6.7. v7.x and v8.0 deployments
• Improved performance at scale with large vCenter Server environments
  • Performance Improvements
  • vCenter enumeration can handle over 10K objects
  • Add Search Capability when selecting vCenter Options for VMs and Datastores
• Install/Uninstall improvements
  • Minimal VMware vSphere permissions for vCenter Server user listed and checked
  • install/uninstall without vCenter Server configured
  • flexible uninstallation process for passive servers
• Public Identity improvement: flexible/configurable skipAsSource policy
• Updated SQL Server Plug-in: added support tor SQL 2014SP1, SQL 2012 SP2/SP3. SQL 2008R2 SP3, SQL 2008 SP4. Removed interaction/protection (at any level) for 2008/2012 Windows Internal Database.  
• Updated vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins suite: added support for vCenter Server 6.0 U1, 6.0 U1b, 6.0 U2

Additional Detailed Information

Supporting Documentation

• Neverfail IT Continuity Engine v8.0 Installation Guide
• Neverfail IT Continuity Engine v8.0 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 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
  • Internet Information Server
  • 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 ITCE for Business Application

Pre-requisites

• For information about pre-requisites for deploying Neverfail ITCE v8.0, refer to the following:
  • Neverfail IT Continuity Engine v8.0 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 IT Continuity Engine and are installed automatically if the application is present:

• Neverfail for Exchange plus
  • ForeFront
  • Symantec Mail Security
• Neverfail for File Server
• Neverfail for IIS
• Neverfail for SharePoint Server
• Neverfail for SQL Server
• Neverfail for vCenter Server  
• 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 for vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins must be performed using the Engine Management Service. Subsequent plugin 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 of Neverfail for vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins to be performed using Engine Management Service.    

To manually install the Neverfail for vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins using the Neverfail Advanced Client, follow the steps below:

1. Unzip the Neverfail for vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins to the desired location.
2. Launch the Neverfail Advanced Client.    
3. Navigate to Application -> Plugins.
4. Click on the Install button.    
5. Click the Browse button and navigate to the location of the <plug-in name>.dll file.
6. Click OK to complete the installation.    
7. Repeat this process for each of the five individual plug-ins.

Important: After installation of the VMware vCenter Server Plug-in you must add a username and password for the plug-in via the Edit Plug-ins dialog.   

Remove/Uninstall a Plug-in

To remove/uninstall/reinstall the vSphere 6.0 Plug-ins using the Neverfail Advanced Client, follow the steps below:

• Launch the Neverfail Advanced Client.
• Navigate to Application ->Plugins.
• Select the <plug-in name>.dll to be removed/uninstalled.
• Click on the Uninstall button in the 'Plugins' pane.
• Click on the Install button.

1. Click the Browse button and navigate to the location of the <plug-in name>.dll file.
2. Click OK to 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 8.0 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).

Fixed Issues

• Provide a 30 day evaluation capability for a pair/trio without any licenses for any product (EN-834).
• Create auditable licenses issued to customers (EN-839).
• Attempting to download the Advanced Management Client via the Engine Management Service User Interface results in Error #2308 (EN-1300).
• After deploying Neverfail ITCE, the navigation through Status/Events/Tasks/Rules/Settings is blocked (EN-965).
• When extending a pair to a trio, the status message displayed during tertiary deployment may not be accurate (EN-1094).
• Performing a single node upgrade and then cancelling the upgrade will continue to display the single node upgrade status in the server list (EN-1491).
• When performing an upgrade and selecting the Upgrade only a specific server in the cluster option, the progress status for the Secondary/Tertiary sever being upgraded is displayed in the Primary server Status field (EN-1491).
• Pressing the Cancel button when the source clone is shutdown, the Cancel button remains grayed-out (EN-1692).
• The EMS User Interface Menus may fail to display following the launch of the Uninstall Wizard (EN-1683).
• During shadow creation, the following error may display: Error in File: .scr\jni.cpp, Function: Java_com_neverfail_rollback_RollbackNativeAdapter_isShadowCreated ,Line: 163 when a shadow was created (EN-1576).
• The VMware Update Manager Plug-in does not support VMware Update Manager Download Services installation type. (EN-1191).
• Progress bar vs Concurrent installs: In the EMS, under the progress bar, the report of only one of the pairs can be seen (EN-905).
• Attempting to upgrade multiple pairs of Neverfail ITCE v7.0 to v7.1 results in the sequential upgrade of the pairs rather than a simultaneously upgrade and requires the user to click Next to continue the upgrade on the additional pair (EN-919).
• The Engine Management Service User Interface fails to display a correct status when it is closed and reopened during an upgrade process (EN-1083).
• Switchover plan fails after applications are unprotected and protected again (EN-1446).
• During deployment onto the Primary server, an error is displayed: Unable to probe a null or empty host name (EN-1534).
• After adding a valid license to an Neverfail ITCE pair, a Warning sign is still present in the Protected Servers pane of the Engine Managment Service (EN-881).
• The Engine Management Service Acknowledge button doesn't clear the failure status in some scenarios (EN-970).
• When the Primary server install fails at the add server to protected servers list, the wrong failed message status is displayed (EN-971).
• When upgrading Neverfail ITCE with the Neverfail System Tray tool running, the About information may not be updated.(EN-867).
• The status of the Vmware vCenter Converter remains in a "connecting” state even if a connection was configured (EN-1693).
• After uninstalling Neverfail ITCE, when reinstalling, the status of the operation may briefly display inaccurately. (Ref-16640).
• After a switchover, the Events page from EMS is not correctly populated (EN-1649).
• After configuring/reconfiguring vCenter Server, the vCenter Inventory may not display or update in EMS immediately (EN-1817).
• During deployment, stopping, or upgrading, the “X” error icon may display on the EMS page (EN-1837).
•  Logging out of the Engine Management Service User Interface with a server pair selected in the Protected Servers pane and logging back in may result in the server cluster's information failing to display. (EN-1018).
• The Plan Execution pane steps displayed may not correspond to the server cluster selected in the Protected Servers pane except when an update arrives (EN-905).
• Synchronization status between servers in a trio is relative, for example, "A" is in-sync with "C" if "A" is in-sync with "B" and "B" is in-sync with "C" (EN-1037).
• If a protected server is removed and re-added via Discover Protected Servers in the Engine Management Service, old tasks may display in the tasks pane for the newly added protected server (Ref-15470).
• Multiple concurrent tasks of the same type may not be shown correctly in the Engine Management Service (Ref-16522).
• When attempting to collect logs via the Neverfail SCOPE Configuration Tool, the dialog prompting you to put Neverfail ITCE into the Maintenance Mode is hidden behind the Neverfail SCOPE Configuration Tool dialog and prevents you from collecting the logs (Ref-14294).

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).
• vPostgreSQL Plugin configured password is incorrectly read from registry (EN-1313).
• 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).
• On uninstallation of Engine Management Service, you may receive a popup about another process holding a lock on a log-file.
  Workaround: Start Task Manager and terminate any instances of nfremoteexec.exe (Ref-15310).
• 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).
• Due to the current design, Enging Management Service is not Managment IP aware (only Public IP aware) (EN-1946).
• Virtual Bytes rule triggered at every check (EN-859).
• The Engine Management Service MSI repair mode fails to operate properly (EN-1389).
• The Neverfail ITCE – Configure Server wizard is missing the management page instructions and help (EN-1854).
• Neverfail ITCE does not allow a user to create a VM (Secondary) server when only a Primary and Tertiary server are present (EN-508). 

Install/Uninstall

• Some licensing error messages are not useful (EN-967).
• The Neverfail ITCE .msi installer package is sometimes detected as having untrusted publishers (EN-969).
• Downgrade of Engine Management Service v8.0 to v7.1 is not supported.
  Workaround: Uninstall EMS v8.0 and then install EMS v7.1 (TD-82).
• DHCP-set gateway and DNS servers present on Secondary-HA post-cloning/configuration (EN-1996).
• 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).
• 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).

Administration

• In the event the registry preferences are lost, they will be restored during the Neverfail ITCE Service restart (EN-1447).
• When a trio is installed and the Secondary server becomes dead or deleted, you must reinstall the entire trio (EN-508).
• 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).
• 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).

Install/Uninstall Information

Installation instructions are found in the following document:

• Neverfail IT Continuity Engine v8.0 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 IT Continuity Engine v8.0

Related Information

None

KBID-2906