Last Updated May 17, 2013

The latest build of AppAssure 5 is 5.3.2.61676. 

Advisory

AppAssure strongly recommends that all users of prior AppAssure 5.3 builds upgrade their Core software to the current build 61676. This build includes several critical fixes for major issues and improvements to performance.

Upgrade Policy

In this build 61676, only the AppAssure Core software needs to be upgraded, unless you are running agents from build 59332. If you are running agents from build 59332, we recommend upgrading both the Core as well as the agents. 

New Features in AppAssure 5 Build 5.3.2.61676

Windows Server 2012 & Windows 8 Support

AppAssure v5.3 (Build 56168 and above) now supports Microsoft Windows 8 and all versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 using NTFS.

Customers can now deploy the Core and Agent software on Windows 8 and Server 2012. In addition, this build 61676 can perform full Bare Metal Recovery of Windows 8 and Server 2012 systems using BIOS; export to Virtual Machines, and LiveRecovery to instantly recover NTFS volumes. Use of UEFI firmware and ReFS is not supported for agents in this release.

AppAssure will soon be providing enhanced support for Windows 8 and Server 2012 which will include the ability to perform Bare Metal Recovery of systems with UEFI, Live Recovery of volumes with ReFS and the ability to export the protected Windows 8 and Server 2012 systems to virtual machines notwithstanding the underlying NTFS or ReFS file systems or the use of UEFI or BIOS firmware.

OS Advisory: Starting with AppAssure 5.3 build 58446, AppAssure strongly recommends the use of Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 for installing the AppAssure Core software. Through enhanced support for sparse files similar to UNIX environments, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 now have major performance improvements in memory consumption when dealing with large repositories. Customers running large multi TB repositories should see a dramatic reduction in memory usage after moving the AppAssure Core OS to Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012.

Issues Resolved in AppAssure 5 Build 5.3.2.61676

• • • Fixes to improve repository performance
    • Checksum check and Rollup jobs fail with “System.OutOfMemoryException” for recovery point chains with incremental snapshots that are larger than 200GB
    • Mailbox Restore fails with “Jet_err_ObjectNotFound, No such table or object” when restoring mailbox items from a database that contains OWA 2007 emails
    • Core Service crashes when a replication job is in progress
    • Fixes to eliminate an incorrect log truncation event “The log truncation for protected machine <server name> has been skipped, because attachability check for SQL Server was not yet performed” that appears even after the log truncation job was completed successfully
    • Core display name does not change in the UI after the hostname was changed
    • SQL Attachability fails with “Failed to connect to server <server name> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.
    • Mailbox Restore fails to restore messages if the mailbox folder contains sub-folders
    • Adding an email address to the notification group fails if the domain name contains numbers
    • Added LVM (Logical Volume Management) tools to the Linux LiveCD
    • Opening a mounted recovery point fails with “The specified network name is no longer available” or “location is not available” for volumes with 32K offset and 64K allocation unit size on Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP agents 
    • Rollup job fails with “System.AggregateException: One or more errors occurred. System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: The specified block is outside the range of this index file” under rare circumstances
    • Adding an agent to protection fails with “"Error occurred pairing to agent at URL"
    • Added 3.0.58-0.6.6 kernel support for SLES 32/64
    • VM export fails with “Sum of byte offset and byte length is greater than stream length which is incorrect” for specific disk layouts

Overview

AppAssure 5 is a unified and integrated backup and replication software that is engineered on
innovative and groundbreaking technologies which offer near-zero recovery time, recoverability
assurance, and cross-platform virtual and physical server recovery (P2V, V2V, V2P or P2P).

These release notes are for build 5.3.2.61676 of AppAssure 5.

System Requirements

Download and Installation Instructions

To download the AppAssure 5 Core and agent software, you will need to register at the AppAssure 5 License Portal http://appassure.licenseportal.com/. Upon successful registration, you can then download and add a core or an agent. The license key is automatically generated when you download the core. You will need to capture and enter the license key to download, manage and configure the core. For more details, please refer to the chapter 3 in the user guide located at License Portal - Quick Start Guide

User Guide

The AppAssure 5 User Guide can be downloaded from HERE.

Release Notes Archive

You can access the AppAssure 5 release notes archive from HERE.

New Features in AppAssure 5.3

Linux Support

AppAssure 5.3 can now protect Linux machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3, CentOS 6.3, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2.  All four distributions are supported in both architectures 32-Bit and 64-Bit.  Only ext3, ext4 and xfs file systems are supported at this time. The Linux agent provides backup, full recovery, bare metal recovery and support for mounting snapshots as point in time volumes. Future releases will provide support for live recovery, delta recovery and VM export.

Windows Server Core Support

AppAssure 5.3 can now protect machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core SP1 or higher.

Migration Tool

The AppAssure Migration Tool lets you convert, archive, and import recovery points from a Replay 4 Core into an AppAssure 5 Core.

Bulk Deployment and Protection

AppAssure 5.3 integrates with Active Directory and vCenter for bulk deployment and bulk protection.  In a multiple machine scenario, it is onerous to install and protect one machine at a time. The Bulk Deployment and Protection feature is used to install the agents and protect them en-masse.

AppAssure Command Line Interface AACMD

The AACMD is a Windows command line interface that allows user interaction to the AppAssure Core Server. It offers some of the same functionalities that are provided by the GUI element in the AppAssure Core Console.  For example, AACMD can list all recovery points or force a snapshot.

Native PowerShell Support

AppAssure 5.3 includes native support for automated administration of AppAssure 5 Cores via PowerShell.

Extended Reporting

AppAssure 5.3 now offers a more robust reporting for job failures and summary reports that can help summarize activity on a single Core or a set of Cores.  

Online Help

AppAssure 5.3 includes an integrated online help, making it easier to access help topics without internet connection.

Significant Performance Updates

A number of optimizations have been incorporated into AppAssure 5.3 which will noticeably improve backup and recovery performance. 

Support

Please feel free to contact our customer service if you have any questions or need any assistance. 

Phone: +1 703-480-0100
Email: support@appassure.com
Web: http://support.appassure.com/