Virtual Tape Library (VTL) Release Notes

Version V8 (build 15469)

05 June 2024

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added downloadable ISO image for StarWind VTL bare-metal deployments. This ISO image can also be used for installation inside a VM on top of supported hypervisors.

Core

• General stability improvements.

Improved

• Log bundle collection.
• Enhanced log rotation.

Updated

• Security patches for Linux components have been updated. (More information can be found here).

Known Issues

• Cloud replication is currently not available in the Linux version. This feature will be added in future updates.

Version V8 (build 15313)

07 December 2023

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added support for emulating IBM TS3500 L32 Tape Library (TS3584 L32) with ULT3580 LTO-7 tape drives.
• Added support for creating virtual tapes with a custom size that can be larger or smaller than the size limits of the selected LTO type.
• Extended the range of supported tape drive block sizes from 64 bytes to 512 kilobytes.

Core

• General stability improvements.

Version V8 (build 14338)

13 October 2021

Fixes were generally applied to VSAN. See what was changed here.

Version 8 (build 14314)

20 September 2021

Core

• Fixed the issue for STARTTLS authentication on SMTP — compatibility issues with some servers.

Management Console

• Fixed control connection issues and improved logging and diagnostics abilities.
• Fixed the issue with service events flooding.
• Fixed minor issues in device creation wizards and dialogs.

Version 8 (build 14120)

24 May 2021

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Fixed the crash that happened during tape export in the case when cloud replication was configured with the option "Create new empty tapes automatically when existing tape removed from VTL for replication." When the option was enabled, the program could crash after the creation of one of the new virtual tapes.

Version 8 (build 14033)

25 March 2021

VTL and Cloud Replication

• MS Azure support: Added the option to upload virtual files to Archive tier directly without uploading to Hot/Cool tier and then moving it to Archive tier in the cloud.
• Added Write Protect option for virtual tapes.
• Fixed the error on restoring the tape split into parts from a cloud. When a tape was split into parts, some parts could not be downloaded from a cloud during the restore procedure.
• VTL file operation mode changed to close unused virtual tape files by default. If there are too many tape parts in use, keeping files open can lead to system resource exhaustion. This mode can be changed back to keep files open with the closedatafiles option in StarWind.cfg file.
• Auto-create option improved. Now it uses size and block size parameters of the previous tape to create the new tape automatically.
• The minimum tape size is limited to 50MB.

StarWindX PowerShell module

• Physical devices are reported in the device list. It allows using PowerShell for exporting physical tape devices.

Licensing

• The License Agreement has been updated.

Version 8 (build 13861)

07 October 2020

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Cloud Replicator, Backblaze: updated error processing for the Backblaze HTTP client.
• Cloud Replicator, MS Azure: fixed performance statistics records in the cloud replicator log for MS Azure replication.
• Cloud Replicator, Amazon S3: China (Ninghia) region removed from the list.

Version 8 (build 13481)

25 February 2020

Core

• StarWind Log Collector wizard added. Logs pack for support requests can be collected on the server using the Management Console. Use the corresponding context menu item for the Server to prepare an archive with logs and download it to the machine where the Management Console is running.
• Fixed the error when the device header file was referenced from the config file but did not exist on the disk, service could crash on start.
• Improved output of event log records for time ranges when the system time underwent changes.
• Added implementation for processing of Header and Data iSCSI digests on CPUs without the SSE4.2 command set.
• The default number of log files in log rotation settings increased from 5 to 20.

E-mail Notifications

• Implemented the support for SSL/STARTTLS SMTP connections.
• Added the option to use SMTP Authentication.
• Added the option to test the current SMTP settings with the "Send Test Message" command in the "Modify Event Notification Rule" dialog for the Send E-Mail action type.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• List of regions for all replicators moved to an external JSON file and can be easily updated in case of changes on the side of the provider.
• Fixes for processing barcodes with non-default lengths (more or less than eight characters).
• Fixed the crash on attempt to upload the tape split into a large number of parts (order of thousands).
• Fixes for replicator settings management. Some controls in CloudReplicator Settings dialog were tied to incorrect parameters.

StarWindX PowerShell Module

• AddVirtualTape.ps1 was updated to use case-insensitive string comparison for a device name search.
• The “Remove-Device” command extended to use optional parameters for force disconnect, keep service data, remove stored data on device remove operation.
• VTLReplicationSettings.ps1 — sample changed to use numeric values for replication destination types.

Management Console

• Minor fixes and updates.

Version 8 (build 13279)

24 October 2019

Core

• Fixed the error in license validation: for licenses with a limited storage capacity of replicated devices, single node devices were taken into account by error.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Fixed the issue with barcode generation: when new tapes were created in several tape drives of the same VTL device at the same time, the same barcode could be assigned to different tapes.

Version 8 (build 13182)

27 August 2019

Core

• Added support for iSCSI Header Digest and iSCSI Data Digest. These features provide CRC data control in iSCSI headers and PDUs, respectively, and can be enabled by setting corresponding options in iSCSI Initiator on the client.
• Added log message for error on session reinstantiation due to the stuck old session.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added option to cancel current cloud upload or cloud download operation.
• Extended replication functionality. Now in the replication process, several objects can be processed in parallel to remove the performance limitation of a single data object (for MS Azure, please see "Target throughput for single blob" at the following link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits).
• Wasabi replicator: EU-central-1 region added.
• Added functionality to manage Cloud Replicator settings using UI (Server - Configuration - Cloud Replicator Settings).

Version 8 (build 12767)

06 February 2019

Core

• Fixed incorrect processing of session disconnections initiated by iSCSI Initiator during the iSCSI Login stage. Previously, these issues could cause the service to crash.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added support for Azure Government storage in the replicator.
• Added option to schedule replicated virtual tape file deletion from public cloud storage.
• Added option to delete virtual tape files from the local and public cloud storage via GUI.
• Added support for Signature Version 2 for S3-compatible Cloud Storage replicators.
• Fixed replication process freezes happening after Backblaze replicator received an unexpected message from the server. The replication progress got stuck, and the status of the tape remained unchanged. The log was flooded with "Inner exception message: Exception of type 'System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException' was thrown" records.
• Fixed error with updating the list of available replicators observed after installation of a new build over a previous version. In build 12658, after updating from the previous versions, S3-compatible cloud storage and Wasabi Cloud Storage options were unavailable in replication settings.

Version 8 (build 12585)

25 October 2018

Core

• Fixed service start crashes in systems where NVMe devices are present.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added support for LTO8 tape devices.
• Added new PowerShell commands for managing VTL devices and Cloud Replication settings.
• See the samples for more information.

Version 8 (build 12381)

17 August 2018

Core

• Event ID code added to message string for notifications to text file.
• Fix for processing unfinished iSCSI Tasks: when iSCSI session terminates in non-graceful way, last commands could remain unprocessed, preventing session termination. These sessions prevent the service from correct shutdown with log message like “Waiting for 5 seconds for clean up to complete (XX refs)..”.
• Fix for operating with ProxMox Virtual Environment. Fixed processing of WRITE_SAME16 SCSI command. StarWind Service was crashing on virtual disk initialization when used with ProxMox VE and VAAI commands enabled.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added support for MS Azure Cloud Storage in replicator.
• Fix for performance issue that was present in 12146, 12166 builds: VTL write performance was affected by non-buffered file operation mode.
• Implemented support for offline pre-seed scenario. If tape backup has been added to cloud storage using offline data transfer service or other methods, tapes can be registered on offline shelf to make them available for restore commands. Use “Restore from Cloud” dialog, select tapes and check “Add tape record from cloud to shelf without downloading it” option.

Version 8 (build 12336)

19 July 2018

Core

Notifications: Event ID code added to message string for notifications to text file.


• Fix for processing un finished iSCSI Tasks: when iSCSI session terminates in non-graceful way, last commands could remain unprocessed, preventing session termination. These sessions prevent the service from correct shutdown with log message like “Waiting for 5 seconds for clean up to complete (XX refs)..”.
• Fix for operating with ProxMox Virtual Environment. Fixed processing of WRITE_SAME16 SCSI command. StarWind Service was crashing on virtual disk initialization when used with ProxMox VE and VAAI commands enabled.

VTL and Cloud Replication

• Added support for MS Azure Cloud Storage in replicator.