vStandby 6.0 Readme

Revised on April 13, 2017

This document contains the important information when using vStandby. It is highly recommended that you read this document carefully before installing vStandby.

Table of Contents

System Requirements

Limitations and Precautions

System Requirements

CPU

Pentium 4 or above

Main Memory

1024MB is required. (2048MB or above is recommended.)

Hard Disk Space

600MB or more of available hard disk space is required for setup.

DVD-ROM Drive

Required to install the product and to start up the Boot Environment.

Internet Connection

Required for activation of the product, installation of the latest updates, displaying Help.

Operating System

• Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8.x, 10.
• Windows Server 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016
  * Only VMware vSphere host is supported to specify as the target destination to create a virtual standby machine from Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2003 R2 and 2008 source machine.

System Requirements for Virtual Platform of Target Host

• VMware vSphere 5.1, 5.5, 6.0
  If using VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) free license version as the target host, vStandby creates VMDK files and are only as current as the latest boot point snapshot taken.


• Hyper-V host on Windows Server 2008 or later
  Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 or later free license version is also supported.

Basic Points (Common)

• Intel Itanium (IA-64) based systems are not supported.
• Hyper-V hosts are not supported as the target destination to create virtual standby replicas from Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2003 R2 and 2008 source machines.
• After upgrading from vStandby 5 to vStandby 6, please re-configure the schedule settings.
• Unsupported Source Disk Types.
      Dynamic disks, Storage Spaces, and 4K sector native hard disks.
• Double-byte characters cannot be used to specify virtual machine names or a VMDK file names.
• If a character other than a single-byte alphanumeric character or symbol is used to specify a network name, the network settings are not properly configured for the created virtual standby replica.
  Before using the virtual standby replica, please edit the network settings.
• WINS addresses are not supported when specifying network settings for a virtual standby replica.
• To delete virtual standby replica, please make sure that you use the same vStandby version used to create the virtual standby replica.
• In [Preparing Virtual Standby Replica...] dialog, there may be instances that an existing virtual standby replica cannot be deleted. If you encounter this problem, please use the vSphere Client to manually delete the virtual standby replica, or change the name of the new virtual machine.
• If a NIC or a disk is added to the source machine after the virtual standby replica was created, the changes are not applied to the newly created virtual standby replica. If you encounter this problem, please delete the schedule and recreate virtual standby replica.
• Remote connection from vStandby 6 to vStandby 5 is not supported.
• Encountered BSoD caused by execution of a task on Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703, build 15063). This problem will be solved in the upcoming update.

Top of the topic

Basic Points (VMware vSphere)

• If an ESXi free license host is selected as the destination host, neither a virtual standby replica, nor multiple incremental boot points are created.
      A VMDK file is created in the specified datastore. The VMDK will only be as current as the most recent incremental boot point applied.
• To connect to vCenter Server of VMware vSphere or ESXi hypervisor for the target host, port 902 is used. If you fail to establish the connection, ensure that the port is opened in Windows Firewall settings on the target host.
• If using the vStandby BE (Boot Environment), a VMDK file created on an ESXi free license server cannot be restored to a physical environment.
• NFS Datastore Destinations.
      If an NFS datastore is specified as destination, a thick provisioned virtual machine is created.
• If the ESXi Server is set to maintenance mode, a virtual standby replica cannot be created. Creation of boot points terminate with an error.

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Basic Points (Microsoft Hyper-V)

• Ensure that Microsoft .NET Framework 4 or later is installed on the host on which vStandby is installed.
• Hyper-V host is not supported as the target destination to create a virtual standby replica from Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2003 R2 and 2008 source machine.
• To establish connection to Hyper-V host, you need to log in as administrator or domain administrator account of the connected host. Users in administrator group or domain administrators group are not authenticated.
• uEFI system conversion is supported only with conversion target host supporting Generation 2 virtual machines.
• uEFI system conversion is not supported for Windows Server 2008 R2/ Windows 7 source machine.
• In the target volume specified in [Configure Virtual Standby Replica] window, a shared folder on which access permissions are set to Full Control for the Everyone group is automatically created.
• Execution of a task, while virtual standby replica is up and running, fails with an error.
• If Hyper-V target host on Windows Server 2008 or 2008R2 is selected, virtual switch settings are not applied to virtual standby replica.
• (8465) Restoring virtual standby replicas created on Hyper-V target host on Windows Server 2008 or 2008R2 to physical machine is not supported.

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Boot Environment Builder (Windows PE)

• To create USB boot media, ensure that there is 1GB or more of available space in the USB memory.
• To create (Windows PE-based) Boot Environment, please make sure Windows ADK is configured in the system.
  Windows ADK needs to include the following components:
• Deployment Tools
• Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE)
• To create 64-bit Boot Environment (Windows PE), a 64-bit OS is required.
• Device drivers must support Windows PE based OS versions to create the boot environment. Windows PE based OS versions will be displayed in "Detailed information of the Windows PE tool" in [Windows PE kit] of the [Windows PE based boot environment builder].
• (8476, 8464) Problems were encountered when building Windows PE using the following combination:
  
  • AIK3.0 and Server 2012 R2
  • ADK8.0 and Server 2008 R2

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Additional Points

• If SAN policy is set to offline (offline shared), the disks other than the system disk will remain offline on the created virtual standby replica.
• Booting virtual environment on a created virtual standby replica is not supported.
• If vStandby is upgraded or uninstalled in a system environment where multiple users are logged in, the process will not complete properly.
      Ensure that a single user logged in a single session and that the other users logged off before starting the operation.
• Clock synchronization with a virtual standby replica fails if an NTP port (123) is blocked by a firewall or if establishing internet connection fails.
  If this occurs, manually adjust the clock accordingly.
• If an SMTP server is not specified for E-Mail notifications, a test mail may not be received by the specified recipient even when the test mail result reports as "Succeeded".
• (8488) Establishing connection from a computer on which only Network Client Management Console is installed to a remote computer should fail.
• (8475) Script files on Windows XP is not supported.