These release notes are archived, and unlikely to be relevant to your current installation.
For more up to date release notes, please refer to our current listing.

This hotfix addresses an issue where failures in a backup job can cause the latest successful backup to be impacted. All users are recommended to update to this hotfix build.

Upgrade Notes

While this release in a minor release containing small improvements and fixes, users upgrading from versions prior to v2.2 should note that they will encounter significant changes in Alike. Please read and understand these changes before upgrading. Two features have been removed or replaced in v2.2, so please be advised. "Standard" or "XVA" backup jobs are no longer offered in Alike. All existing XVA backups are automatically migrated to Enhanced Backups, which offer superior performance and reliability. Additionally, Optimize jobs have been removed and are also no longer offered as a job extension. Alike now continuously performs in-line defragmentation, eliminating the need to run Optimize jobs.

Due to significant changes to Alike Free, these users are highly advised to read through all the changes below prior to performing the upgrade.

Important Changes Introduced in v2.2

• Support for XVA-based backup no longer available. Users with XVA backup jobs are automatically migrated to Enhanced Backup jobs.
• Introducing VM Validate feature for Alike Standard and DR. The VM Validate feature automatically checks backup data consistency in the background, and places a check mark next to the version when validation is successful. Users may manually validate a VM in the VM Explorer view at any time.

Important Changes to Alike Free Edition

• Alike Free users have been granted use of a single ABD (limited to 1 IP) in order to replace XVA based backup jobs. Free users will need to complete the ABD deployment portion of the configuration wizard during the upgrade process.
• Although Alike no longer supports XVA based backup jobs, prior xva based backups will still restore properly.
• Alike Free users can now perform "Enhanced Backup" jobs.
• Alike Free users have been granted use of the "restore to XVA" capabiliy.
• Alike Free users will not have access to File Level Recovery or VM Validation features.
• Alike Free users' vm retention limits have been reduced to 1 per VM.

Improvements in 2.2.1

• By default, Alike will now prevent VM validation from running until all active backups are complete. This can increase performance for users with slower ADS equipemnt.
• Backup commit times have been improved by tuning file search and move operations.
• Load to the ADS generated by the BackupScheduler service has been throttled, and can be tuned if needed by QuorumSoft support.
• QuorumSoft support can now tune an Alike installation to disable XenMotion for ABDs and start them local to the target host instead.
• Data purge times have been decreased by limiting number of I/O operations required.
• Alike will now archive its databases after VM validation has completed, not after backups complete, to improve transaction integrity when archiving the ADS.

Bug Fixes in 2.2.1

• Fixes issue where users upgrading from earlier versions of Alike could experience service crashes on startup.
• Addresses data retention issue introduced in 2.2.0 specific to single-pass backup and replicate.
• Fixes issue introduced in 2.2.0 where the Alike UI would not list all SRs.
• Fixes problems encountered during I/O error recovery of network intermittancy.
• Fixes issue introduced in 2.2.0 where the VM validation queue could stall backup jobs from completing.
• Addresses issue where the Alike 2.2.0 UI could not enumerate VMs on some hosts.
• 2.2.0 introduced a bug where backups that had not been validated were not purged, causing recent backups to be purged instead.
• Longstanding bug where Backups with impossible dates, especially initial backups, has been fixed.
• Addresses pre-existing bug where manually purging the latest version of a VM backup could impact future backups.
• Fixes issue in vaulting introduced in 2.2.0 where BackupScheduler would crash when databases grew above a certain size.

Upgrade Notes

This release is a major release, and contains significant changes. Please read and understand these changes before upgrading. Two features have been removed or replaced in v2.2, so please be advised. "Standard" or "XVA" backup jobs are no longer offered in Alike. All existing XVA backups are automatically migrated to Enhanced Backups, which offer superior performance and reliability. Additionally, Optimize jobs have been removed and are also no longer offered as a job extension. Alike now continuously performs in-line defragmentation, eliminating the need to run Optimize jobs.

Due to significant changes to Alike Free, these users are highly advised to read through all the changes below prior to performing the upgrade.

Overall Changes

• Introducing VM Validate feature for Alike Standard and DR. The VM Validate feature automatically checks backup data consistency in the background, and places a check mark next to the version when validation is successful. Users may manually validate a VM in the VM Explorer view at any time.
• A new install wizard now guides users through initial configuration of Alike. This wizard helps assure all important settings have been selected and tested and that users get the most out of their Alike installation.
• The ability to restore directly to XVA files now available for all backups.
• Support for XVA-based backup no longer available. Users with XVA backup jobs are automatically migrated to Enhanced Backup jobs.
• The Alike Data Store (ADS) requirements and load on system resources has been greatly reduced, using less overall memory in Windows 2008R2 and similar environments.
• Alike is more efficient at both finding unused data to purge, and reclaiming it.
• Default installation block size has been increased from 256KB to 512KB. This change may result in increased performance and reduced database sizes. The new blocksize is only set on new installs, upgraded users will remain at the old size.
• Users may now perform multiple restore jobs simultaneously
• Alike's automatically scheduled System Consistency Check has been removed, as they are supersceded by the in-line maintenance.
• Improvements to Enhanced Replication offer better handling of network failures and intermittancies.
• Offsite Vaulting received numerous bug fixes. Offsite vaulting performance has been improved
• Various improvements to UI responsiveness.

Changes to Alike Free Edition

• Alike Free users have been granted use of a single ABD (limited to 1 IP) in order to replace XVA based backup jobs. Free users will need to complete the ABD deployment portion of the configuration wizard during the upgrade process.
• Although Alike no longer supports XVA based backup jobs, prior xva based backups will still restore properly.
• Alike Free users can now perform "Enhanced Backup" jobs.
• Alike Free users have been granted use of the "restore to XVA" capabiliy.
• Alike Free users will not have access to File Level Recovery or VM Validation features.
• Alike Free users' vm retention limits have been reduced to 1 per VM.

Known Issues

• To-filesystem XVA restore does not properly handle all Linux VMs. While disk data is valid for these XVAs, improper metadata prevents the VMs from booting.
• File-level restore may not be able to expose ext3 and ext4 filesytems. These filesystems can still be fully recovered using Enhanced Restore.

About this release
This version is a minor release. Existing customers are urged to read and understand product changes before upgrading.

Upgrade Notes

• This version is a minor upgrade that contains usability enhancements and bug fixes.
• The Alike ABD has been improved to simplify its provisioning. The upgrade process will update your ABD templates on all registered pools.

Changes

• New feature added to power on and off VMs for snapshot operations.
• Emails can now be disabled for select jobs, or notification sent only on failure.
• User scripts can now be configured per-job.
• Bug fixes for optimize and system startup.
• Addressed issue in Offsite Vaulting where an ABD could not be deployed on the Offsite Module
• Fixing intermittant timing bug affecting data reclaim and job scheduling

Known Issues

• File-level restore may not be able to expose ext3 and ext4 filesytems. These filesystems can still be fully recovered using Enhanced Restore.
• Optimize's defragmentation phase may not complete with the error "Attempted to putBlock beyond BDBFile...".
• Offsite Vaulting can fail with Windows socket error 10014 during periods of heavy load. The vault can be retried later and sent data is not lost.

About this release
This version is a major release. Existing customers are urged to read and understand product changes before upgrading.

Upgrade Notes

• 2.1.2 introduces file-level recovery for Enhanced Backups! This feature is available for Alike Standard and DR editions.
• The Alike ABD has been improved to simplify its provisioning. The upgrade process will update your ABD templates on all registered pools.

Changes

• If a quiesce snapshot is needed by a backup job and fails, Alike will no longer fall back to a normal snapshot.
• Enhanced Replicate enhancements to better handle unreliable networking conditions.
• Enhanced Replicate will now redo scan of destination VM if it detects problems from a previous run.
• Fixed issue in ABD CIFs authentication.
• Addresses issue where concurrent enhanced jobs could develop IP conflicts provisioning ABDs.

Known Issues

• File-level restore may not be able to expose ext3 and ext4 filesytems. These filesystems can still be fully recovered using Enhanced Restore.
• Optimize's defragmentation phase may not complete with the error "Attempted to putBlock beyond BDBFile...".
• Offsite Vaulting can fail with Windows socket error 10014 during periods of heavy load. The vault can be retried later and sent data is not lost.

About this release
This version is a major release. Existing customers are urged to read and understand product changes before upgrading.

Upgrade Notes

• 2.1.2 introduces file-level recovery for Enhanced Backups! This feature is available for Alike Standard and DR editions.
• The Alike ABD has been improved to simplify its provisioning. The upgrade process will update your ABD templates on all registered pools.

Changes

• File-level restore option for Enhanced backups available under the VM Explorer page.
• ABD Diagnostic Tool available under Settings->Network. This test will validate your ABD settings and benchmark your SR and Data Store performance.
• Offsite Vaulting calculates payloads faster, especially for larger VMs.
• Offsite Vaulting now shows percent complete under its job logs.
• An issue where BDB files could grow beyond 2GB has been addressed.
• Various UI fixes and improvements.
• Introduces an opmtization to the Enhanced Replicate jobs, improving first-pass performance.

Known Issues

• File-level restore may not be able to expose EXT3 and EXT4 filesytems. These filesystems can still be fully recovered using Enhanced Restore.
• Optimize's defragmentation phase may not complete with the error "Attempted to putBlock beyond BDBFile...".
• Offsite Vaulting can fail with Windows socket error 10014 during periods of heavy load. The vault can be retried later and sent data is not lost.

About this release
This version is a major release. Existing customers are urged to read and understand product changes before upgrading.

Upgrade Notes

• Alike must analyze your existing Data Store and convert it to the new ADS format during the upgrade process. This process can take a very long time for large amounts of data, please plan your upgrade accordingly!
• After the upgrade completes, you will need to log into XenCenter and delete your existing ABDs from your XenServer hosts and deploy the new ABD image from the UI.
• Alike relies heavily on CIFS for Enhanced backup and Replicate operations. If you are using a local data store, Alike will attempt to create a Windows CIFS share for you. You must have Windows Sharing enabled
• Please be aware that the faster your CIFS Data Store performance, the faster Alike can operate. If you have a high-performance CIFS NAS, consider moving your Data Store to it
• Please read and understand the new ABD architecture if you are using Enhanced Backup or Enhanced Replicate

Changes

• Introduces new Enhanced backup and replicate architecture
• Enhanced backup jobs now perform source-side deduplication processing via the ABDs (Alike Backup Appliance)
• ABD is deployed as a template, and is dynamically provisioned when needed by a job
• Concurrent Enhanced backup and replication jobs each spawn their own temporary ABD
• Alike Enhanced Backups can consume dramatically less bandwidth, especially in runs after the initial backup
• Alike must expose its ADS (Alike Data Store) via a CIFS share for the ABDs to access. If you upgrade with a local ADS path, Alike will create a Windows for you.
• Enhanced Replication jobs now use Alike's deduplication engine for faster and more efficient performance
• Offsite Vaulting incorporates improved handling of large VMs
• UI improvements to screen loading and responsiveness. Activity page and Job Log Details have been optimized
• Incidents of Windows 1219 "multiple credentials" errors have been greatly reduced and mitigated
• Xen hosts work with NAT addresses for single host targets
• New ABD supports NAT addressing
• "Force Immediate Data Reclaim" option removed from settings, data purges are performed in the background

About this release

Changes

• Fixes stall in UI when adding more than a few hosts at a time
• Addresses bug in offsite version retention where a version retained offsite would not be properly purged onsite
• Resolves rare error in deduplication (munge) where backup jobs fail with message "fingerprint is not unique"
• Improves handling of UNC data store paths in the UI
• Resolves issue where scheduled jobs would run once, but not subsequently

About this release

Changes

• Number of backup versions retained can now be configured on a per-VM basis in the VM Explorer page
• Improvements to log messages and reporting
• Various UI and copy improvements
• Imrovements and fixes for Enhanced Backup
• Fixed bug where trial licences continue to alert user after commercial license has been installed
• Various improvements to Enhanced Replication feature of Alike DR
• Bugfixes for Offsite Vaulting feature of Alike DR

About this release

Changes

• Repair installer option added
• Snapshot space requirements reduced when selecting specific drives for backup/replication
• Fixed potential network reconnection errors in vault jobs
• Offsite vault jobs are spawned per VM for improved clarity
• Enhanced replication can now correctly target local SRs on non-pool masters
• Misc. Vaulting improvements
• Minor Munging performance improvement during concurrent jobs
• Support for SMTP Authentication added
• Memory utilization controls changed from percentage to numeric value
• Recurring jobs limit raised from 10 to 24
• Many minor logging and UI improvements
• Corrected Standard replicate issue where disks could be imported read-only
• Corrected erroneous "SR Operation not supported" errors during snapshot
• Corrected UUID_invalid error during quiesced jobs
• Fixed sporadic munge slowdowns

About this release

Changes

• Optimize (defragmentation) performance is significantly improved
• Standard and Enhanced restore performance is significantly improved
• Intermittent enhanced replication failure between Resource Pools has been resolved
• A new, automated system consistency check is in place
• Standard and enhanced replication jobs have been overhauled
• Optimize and restore jobs no longer count against the 3 schedule limit in Alike Free

About this release

Changes

• Alike now allocates an appropriate amount of memory on systems with 8GB+
• Eliminated possibilty for unexpected service shutdown, in rare cases
• Eliminated possibility for extremely long delay when munging reached 100%
• Standard Replication jobs no longer inaccurately wait for exclusive ABD access
• Standard/Enhanced Replication jobs are now a configurable option in the Wizard
• Enhanced Replication jobs can now target any pool member's local storage as intended
• "Vault Now" option added in VM Explorer to allow manual offsite vaulting
• Varios Offsite Module bugfixes
• Certain settings no longer require a service restart to take effect
• Email notifications are now RFC 821/5321 compliant, and a test email button has been added.

About this release

Changes

Build 2634

• Corrected error that could cause intermittent munge slowdowns.
• Enhanced Replication jobs take drastically less bandwidth on subsequent runs.
• Certain settings are saved immediately without the need to restart services.
• New option in Alike Manager to adjust amount of memory Alike allocates on startup.
• Optimize jobs defined onsite will now also run correctly on the offsite recover console.
• Vault jobs now display the correct amount of data sent over the network.
• Added Test email feature.

Build 2644

• User defined defragmentation threshold honored in optimize jobs.
• Intermittent 'bad allocation' errors should be corrected.

About this release

Changes

• Introduced Alike DR edition.
• Offsite Module for Alike DR.
• Enhanced Replication for Alike DR.
• Improved support for simultaneous job processing.
• Additional consistency checking added a startup.
• Consistency check now an option for Optimize jobs.
• An updated image for the ABD is available for download via the Alike UI Settings page.
• Enhanced Backups now can restore to unlicensed hosts.
• Improvements to Optimize system jobs.
• Increases to UI performance.
• Search tool for VMs in the Wizards.
• Ability to "quick restore" enhanced backups.
• Various look-and-feel UI improvements

Known Issues

Stay tuned...

About this release

Changes

Additional ABD deployment options added.

Added ABD migration ability.

Alike can now track and manage VM across Pools properly.

Inaccessable SRs detected correctly in enhanced backup jobs.

Improved settings save time.

Improved snapshot cleanup handling.

Improved error handling and messages.

Orphaned VMs now shown in UI to allow for restore or purge.

Active JobLogs scroll in reverse now.

Scheduling Wizard got a minor make over.

VM Disk sizes correctly shown in selection screens.

Alike Manager employs some caching for Xen data to improve responsiveness.

Jobs scheduled to run immediately now more intuitive.

About this release

Changes

Added Enhanced Backups for Alike Standard Edition.

Added the Alike Backup Delegate (ABD), a tiny virtual appliance used by Enhanced Backups. Configure and deploy it under Settings.

Eliminated the need for Temporary Storage space in Enhanced Backup/Restore Jobs.

Alike can now track and manage VM across Pools properly.

Purge and Optimize, which reclaim old backups and free disk space, run significantly faster and reclaim more space.

Error handling in replicate jobs improved.

UI will no longer prevent a job from being created if a one-time job once existed with the same name.

BackupScheduler now cleans up running jobs if its process is restarted. Temp directories are also cleaned.

Low disk space conditions and notification improvements.

Upgraded licensing scheme. Alike Standard customers will be prompted to upgrade their licenses to Alike 2.0 when running the 2.0 installer.

Many, many additional improvements.

Known Issues

Stay tuned...