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everRun Release 7.4.3.2 Release Notes

These Release Notes are for everRun release 7.4.3.2 (updated at 11:05 AM on 1/16/2019). See the following sections:

Notes:  

Accessing Stratus Knowledge Base Articles

The Stratus Customer Service Portal provides a searchable Knowledge Base with technical articles about all Stratus products, including everRun. In some cases, the Release Notes directly reference these Knowledge Base articles (for example, KB-nnnn). You can access the Customer Service Portal and the Knowledge Base articles by using your existing service portal credentials, or by creating a new user account, as follows.

To access the Knowledge Base

  1. Log on to the Stratus Customer Service Portal at https://support.stratus.com

    If needed, create a new account as follows:

    1. Click Register Account.

    2. Enter your company email address and contact info, and click Register.

      Your company email address must include a domain name (for example, stratus.com) for a company that is a registered customer of Stratus.

    3. Click the link in the email that you receive from Stratus.
    4. Enter a new password and finish configuring your account.

    If you need assistance creating an account, contact your authorized Stratus service representative.

  2. In the service portal, click Knowledge Base in the left pane.

  3. In the Keyword Search box, enter keywords associated with the information you need, and then click Search.

    To search for an article by its KB-nnnn number, click Advanced Search. Next to Search by ID, type the article ID number (nnnn) and click Display.

Bug Fixes

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.3.2

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.3.1

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.3.0

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.2.0

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.1.2

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.1.1

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.1.0

Fixed in everRun Release 7.4.0.1

New Features and Enhancements

New in everRun Release 7.4.3.0

You can obtain information about alerts, audit logs, nodes, VMs, and volumes by issuing the snmptable command. For information, see Obtaining System Information with snmptable.

New in everRun Release 7.4.2.0

Platform and Host OS support includes these Intel® Xeon® processors (also listed in Physical Machine System Requirements):

An Ubuntu 14.04 AVCLI client has been added and can be downloaded from the Downloads page at http://www.stratus.com/go/support/everrun.

An everRun system provides a network segmentation detection mechanism. For information, see Network Segmentation Fault Detection and Remediation.

everRun Release 7.4.2.0 and later releases support CentOS and Red Hat Releases 6.9 and 7.3 as well as the SLES 11 SP4 64-bit and SLES 12 SP2 64-bit versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. See Compatible Guest Operating Systems.

The kit upgrade requirement that existing partitions must be aligned on a 1 MB boundary has been removed.

New in everRun Release 7.4.1.0

everRun Release 7.4.1.0 and later releases support Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Essentials, Standard, and Datacenter (64-bit) guest operating systems for VMs, as listed in Compatible Guest Operating Systems.

New in everRun Release 7.4.0.0

Features No Longer Supported in everRun Release 7.4.0.0 or Higher

Important Considerations

Some Browsers Unable To Connect A VNC When Using https

If you are connected to the everRun Availability Console using an https URL in a Microsoft Internet Explorer™ or Mozilla® FireFox® browser, and you click Console after selecting a running VM from the Virtual Machines page, the message Unable to connect VNC may appear. To enable the VNC connection, click the https link to the VNC console page in the upper right-hand corner of the masthead, and continue with the appropriate procedure below:

The VNC console appears.

Upgrading From everRun Release 7.4.0.x

You can upgrade from everRun Release 7.4.0.x to Release 7.4. 3 .x by following the instructions in Upgrading everRun Software.

Caution: All PMs and VMs must be in good health prior to performing an upgrade of the everRun software. Before starting an upgrade, examine the everRun Availability Console to verify that there are no alerts indicating PM or VM problems.

Upgrading From everRun Release 7.3.4.0 or Previous Releases of everRun

You can upgrade from everRun Release 7.3.4.0 to Release 7.4.x by following the instructions in Upgrading everRun Software. If you are upgrading from an everRun release prior to Release 7.3.4.0, you must upgrade to Release 7.3.4.0 first, and then upgrade to Release 7.4.x.

The upgrade to everRun Release 7.4.x requires no VM downtime unless your system has external storage, as summarized in Upgrading a System with External Storage from Release 7.3.4 to 7.4.x.

Caution: All PMs and VMs must be in good health prior to performing an upgrade of the everRun software. Before starting an upgrade, examine the everRun Availability Console to verify that there are no alerts indicating PM or VM problems.

When upgrading from everRun 7.3.4.0 or previous releases to everRun Release 7.4.x, consider the following:

Using 4K Disks for Better Performance

everRun Release 7.4.0.0 or higher supports 4K sector size disks in native mode. Stratus recommends using 4K disks for better performance; however, observe the restrictions described in Storage Requirements.

Do Not Update CentOS Host OS Directly From CentOS

Do not update the CentOS host OS of the everRun system directly from CentOS. Use only the CentOS release that is installed along with everRun software.

Optimizing Performance of A-Link Networks

Enabling jumbo frames on A-Link networks by changing their Ethernet frame MTU size from the default 1500 bytes to 9000 bytes may improve VM performance and reduce host processing overhead. See KB-4262 for instructions.

Status of RAID Physical Disks Is Not Monitored

everRun software does not monitor the state of physical disks in a RAID set. You must use the tools supplied by the RAID controller vendor to monitor the health and status of individual physical disks in a RAID set.

Other Important everRun Considerations

For important considerations about everRun systems, see Important Physical Machine and Virtual Machine Considerations.

Known Issues

Avoid Removing a VM While Only One Node is Running

To avoid downtime, always ensure that both nodes are in the running state and that neither node is in maintenance mode or in the process of synchronizing before removing a VM.

If you remove a VM while one node is shut down in maintenance mode, the operation may stall with the error, "There was a problem deleting vm-name." To correct the problem, you must restart the only running node.

Invalid VM Names Prevent Some VM Operations from Executing

The everRun Availability Console may improperly validate VM names to ensure that they meet the software requirements. If you are creating, reprovisioning, or renaming a VM with an unsuitable name, the operation may fail to execute.

To avoid any problems with VM operations, ensure that your VM names meet the following requirements:

Windows 2008 (pre-R2) Guests May Crash

To avoid guest crashes, do not install Windows 2008 pre-R2 guests on everRun systems. For more information, see KB-1912.

Alert Status For a Failed Volume May Not Be Displayed Correctly

An alert indicating that a volume has failed on a specific node may have a Normal status indicator (green check mark) on the Alerts page even though the volume remains in a failed condition. In such a case, the Repair Storage button will still be visible. Click it to move the volume to another logical disk.

everRun May Not Detect Reconnection of Management Network Cable

If you boot a PM while its management network (ibiz0) cable is disconnected and then you reconnect the cable after the PM is running, everRun may not detect that the cable has been reconnected. For more information, see KB-4271.

Information About PCI Devices May Not Be Displayed

Depending on a system's hardware configuration, information about PCI devices (and the storage attached to them) may not be displayed in the everRun Availability Console.

State of External Storage Not Reflected in Node's State

A PM's (node) state is not affected by the state of non-system dependent volumes (any volumes other than root, swap and shared.fs). As a result, external storage can be in a failed state and the node's state will not reflect that. To see the state of external storage, view the state of the VMs and volumes that are on external storage.

Resizing Logical Disks on External Storage Is Not Supported

You cannot extend an external storage LUN and resize the everRun logical disk it contains to use the additional space. If more disk space is needed, you must create a new, larger LUN on your external storage system and then map it to the everRun system as described in Adding or Removing External Storage LUNs.

VMs May Not Boot If One Node is Removed From System

If you remove one PM from the system (by clicking Work On and then clicking Remove), do not place the remaining PM into maintenance and then bring it back into service by just using the Finalize button. Doing so will prevent all VMs from being able to boot. If you must place the remaining PM into maintenance mode, reboot it before you return it to service. See Rebooting a Physical Machine for details.

Removing Snapshots Temporarily Prevents Some VM Operations

When you remove a snapshot on an everRun system, the system must coalesce the snapshot by merging it with the next oldest snapshot. While the system is coalescing snapshots:

Avoid removing snapshots if you have an immediate need to perform any of these operations. After you remove a snapshot, wait at least 10-15 minutes before attempting any of these operations, or retry the operation if needed. You may need to wait much longer depending on the size of your volumes, the amount of VM activity, and the number of snapshots you remove.

For information about how to monitor coalescing operations that are underway, see KB-4272.

Creation of Snapshots Results in Volume Conversion from RAW to QCOW2 Format

If you create and delete a snapshot of a volume that is currently in RAW format, the everRun software automatically converts the volume from RAW to QCOW2 format. The conversion is expected because snapshots require QCOW2 format, but consider that changing the volume format may have performance implications for certain VM loads. You cannot convert a volume from QCOW2 back to RAW format.

New features in everRun Release 7.4.0.0 or higher allow you to copy VMs and export VMs that are stopped without requiring a snapshot. If routine snapshots will not be required, consider these alternatives to retain RAW format (and avoid growing the size of volume containers).

Moving an everRun System to a Different Subnet

If you need to configure the network of an everRun system to work on a different subnet (for example when shipping to another location or when reconfiguring network subnets), see KB-4264 for instructions.

Enabling Log Files for the Windows QEMU Guest Agent May Cause VM Timeouts When Taking Snapshots

When configuring the Windows QEMU guest agent, do not enable the option to save a log file during snapshots. If the QEMU guest agent attempts to create a log file during a snapshot, it may cause VSS timeouts that prevent the snapshot from completing.

Unsupported Network Adapter Card and Chip

Due to the issue outlined at http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=migr-5093183, everRun does not support the following network adapter card and chip:

Do Not Use the ifdown Command

Do not issue the ifdown command from an everRun physical machine's host OS to temporarily bring down a VM's business (ibizx) network connection. Doing so will disconnect the physical interface from its bridge and cause the VM to become unreachable over the network. Instead, use the ifconfig down command.

Documentation Updates

This section lists documentation changes made late in the release.

Updates in everRun Release 7.4.2.0 Documentation

Updates in everRun Release 7.4.1.0 Documentation

Updates in everRun Release 7.4.0.0 Documentation

Getting Help

If you have a technical question about everRun software, you can find the latest technical information and online documentation at the Downloads page at http://www.stratus.com/go/support/everrun. You can also search the Knowledge Base in the Stratus Customer Service Portal at https://support.stratus.com.

If you are unable to resolve your questions with these online resources, and the system is covered by a service agreement, please contact everRun Customer Support or your authorized Stratus service representative. For information, see the everRun Support page at http://www.stratus.com/services-support/customer-support.

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Product Support and Downloads

Web Support: http://www.stratus.com/services-support/customer-support
Web Downloads: http://www.stratus.com/go/support/everrun
Phone: (US Toll-Free) 866-763-1813
Phone: (International) 602-852-3094
About Stratus

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Worldwide Office Locations

Product Documentation (PDF Format)

everRun User's Guide

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About Help

Help created at 11:05 AM on 1/16/2019.