Overview

For more than 20 years, Neverfail has been providing world-class business continuity and disaster recovery software to over fifty thousand direct customers in over sixty countries. In doing so, Continuity Engine provides a very unique technology that focuses on pulling together the best of clustering, data replication and protection which glued together with a “true” application aware automatic failover. And as such, our list of partners continues to grow worldwide as do our integration partners.

Tens of thousands of deployments of Continuity Engine has proven that Continuous Availability with Application Aware Failover is truly the right approach for protecting the most mission critical Windows applications. Now in our 24th year, we are announcing the availability Continuity Engine 10. This attests to not only the maturity of the product but this demonstrates this is the most advanced Continuity Engine ever and still has a very unique value proposition.

What's New

More Secure

Check for SMBv1 presence and veto installation or upgrade

• Continuity Engine installation and upgrade wizards will check starting v10 if SMBv1 is present on the target server and will veto deployment: if SMBv1 is found present, installation and upgrade of CEv10 won't be permitted due to security and interoping considerations.

• For more information, please read The risks of using the deprecated SMBv1 feature on a Windows Server. Potential collisions with Continuity Engine functionality.

Disabling SMB v2/v3 on a server protected by Neverfail Continuity Engine

• Procedure described in: Disabling SMB v2/v3 on a server protected by Neverfail Continuity Engine

OpenJDK and Apache Tomcat version update to latest

• Continuity Engine's objective is to keep your systems up, running, protected, and safe. Having the latest security updates, fixes and patches for the used open-source software is critical.

  • Neverfail Continuity Engine 10 is updated to Azul Zulu 8.70.0.23 (JDK version 8u372-b07). 

  • Neverfail Continuity Engine 10 is updated to Apache Tomcat 9.0.74. Following link lists all security vulnerabilities fixed in released versions of Apache Tomcat.

Better User Experience

Improved Interaction Experience with Engine Management Service Inventory and Automated Deployment Operations

• Engine Management Service Inventory view aligned with VMware vSphere Web Client hierarchy.

• VMware Clusters and Resource Pools can now be selected and configured as compute resource targets when deploying Continuity Engine solution (Protect | Add Standby | Reconstruct | Reclone).

Google Cloud Platform Support Enhancements - Solution Pack for streamlining hybrid deployments

• Streamlines on-premises (VMware vCenter Server) to Google Cloud  deployment process (prepare, migrate and configure DR standby node)

• Solution pack with documentation available here: Neverfail Continuity Engine Add-on for Hybrid Deployment to Google Cloud Platform
  

New Supported Versions

Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2022

• Added support for Continuity Engine deployments on Windows Server 2022 Standard / Datacenter.

• Validated support for Neverfail System Plug-in, Neverfail for IIS, Neverfail for File Server with Windows Server 2022 features

Support for Microsoft Windows 11 IoT/Enterprise ecosystems

• This new feature enables HA/DR for Windows 11 IoT/Enterprise ecosystems. Additional considerations in Additional requirements when installing Neverfail Continuity Engine on Windows 10 or Windows 11.

New or Updated Plugins

• Neverfail System Plug-in: added a generic rule for checking a website / URL availability

• Neverfail for Progress MOVEit: support for Progress MOVEit 2022.1 suite of products: Automation Server, Transfer Server

• Neverfail for Mitel MiContact Center Business: added support for MiContact Center Business 9.5

• Neverfail for Neverfail for OpenText CX-E Voice: added support for CX-E Voice version 23.2

VMware vCenter Server and VMware vCenter Converter Support

1. Supported - Neverfail Engine Management Service API Support for deployment using the latest versions of VMware vCenter Server 7.0 and VMware vCenter Converter 6.2.
2. Supported - Neverfail for vSphere Integration Plug-in Support for interoping with the latest versions of VMware vCenter Server 7.0
3. Coming soon - Neverfail Engine Management Service API Support for deployment using the latest versions of VMware vCenter Server 8.0 and VMware vCenter Converter 6.3.
4. Coming soon - Neverfail for vSphere Integration Plug-in Support for interoping with the latest versions of VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Licensing Updates 

Software Licensing Model

• Continuity Engine 10 licensing model is built on top of v9.0 model which transitioned Engine from a perpetual model to a (SaaS) term and rental model. Engine Licensing Service (ELS) enables call-home features that power our SaaS based licensing. The new cloud service is free but is required for Term and Rental deployments.  For more information on how the licensing works and upgrade notes please read Continuity Engine Licensing Model and updated Neverfail End-User License Subscription Agreement  (valid for Continuity Engine 10 and later). 

• The Engine Management Service provides the mechanism to securely communicate with the ELS via SSL and transfer hardware signatures to the ELS to generate licenses. Then the EMS delivers a node locked key to the EMS and it automatically assigns that license to the protected application server. Then daily it sends Neverfail telemetry information describing the current state of the license.

• ELS has a fully automated process for regenerating license keys if a customer decides to continue to renew its SaaS license yearly.

• Offline activations of new term/rental licenses will be handled via a support ticket at support@neverfail.com.

End of Perpetual Limited Licenses

Continuity Engine 10 doesn’t support anymore the legacy business model with perpetual limited licenses introduced by v9.0. The only supported model is subscription (term) based licenses. Check the new Neverfail End-User License Subscription Agreement.

Backward Compatibility

Neverfail Continuity Engine 10 Management Service is compatible with older versions of Continuity Engine (i.e. EMS 10.0 manages correctly CE 6.x/7.x/8.x/9.x). However, many of the new features are not supported thus cannot be used in this context. For example, here are the new v10.0 features not supported with CE v8.x:

• Server Monitoring features. This is new in Engine 9.0 and exposes Failover/ Split-brain avoidance / Isolation / Network Monitoring functionality

• Access to unified deployment workflow which includes: Add | Reconstruct | Reconfigure Standby Servers

• Access to the new licensing service (ELS), hence to online licensing process

FAQ

1. Will the HTML5 UI work with my Engine 8.0/8.5 deployments for I don’t have to use FLASH? Yes, but some features as mentioned above will be disabled as they are exclusive to Continuity Engine 9.0 and later. However, you will get popup messages asking you to upgrade. However, Continuity Engine 8.x is already end of life, since January 31, 2023.  For more information regarding Continuity Engine v8.x EOL Policy, please read Notice of End of Support Life for Neverfail Continuity 8.1, 8.2 and 8.5.

2. If I upgrade to Continuity Engine 10, will my perpetual license cease? Yes! You are accepting SaaS license. requirements outlined in the new EULA for Term and Rental. Neverfail will generate new license authorizations for your current deployment. This means you will need to pay for support to continue software operations yearly or monthly depending on the type of license. Please read carefully the Continuity Engine Licensing Model article.

3. Can I upgrade using the Upgrade Wizard from 6.7 to Continuity Engine 10? Yes, the upgrade wizard is still supported. Keep in mind that Continuity Engine 6.7, 7.x and 8.x are currently End-of-Life (EOL). To ensure organization continued support, we would encourage you to upgrade to the latest version.

4. Will Continuity Engine 9.0 EOL soon? Continuity Engine 9.0 will be EoL 30th of April, 2024. For more information regarding Continuity Engine v9.0 EOL Policy, please read Notice of End of Support Life for Neverfail Continuity 9.0.
   

5. Can I stay on previous versions of Continuity Engine? Yes, however, previous versions will eventually EOL and you will not be able to take full advantage of the new features of Continuity Engine v10. And evenly important, your systems will be more exposed to cyberattacks. Just as a brief "illustration" for older version cybersecurity risks compared to CEv10:
   


1. CEv9.0
   
1. misses all the security fixes between OpenJDK 8u332-b09 (April 2022) and 8u372-b07 (April 2023)
2. misses all the security fixes between Tomcat 9.0.64 (May 2022) and 9.0.74 (April 2023)
2. CEv8.5 - EOL since January 31 2023
   
1. misses all the security fixes between OpenJDK 8u242-b08 (January 2020) and 8u372-b07 (April 2023)
2. misses all the security fixes between Tomcat 7.0.100 (February 2020) and 9.0.74 (April 2023). Note: Tomcat 7.x was EOL March 2021.