Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines 6.1 Release Notes

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Limitations

The topic lists the system limitations that apply to RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines.

Information about interoperability limitations is available at E-Lab Navigator.

Table 1. System limitationsThe following table displays the list of system limitations.
Category	Limitation
RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines with PowerProtect Data Manager with VADP mechanism	When a PPDM backup using VADP mechanism is triggered for RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines protected VMs, the corresponding Consistency Group (CG) enters degraded or paused state. The CGs automatically resume replication and becomes active after the snapshot creation is complete. In a protection policy created with multiple VMs in PPDM, the VMs are backed up sequentially using VADP mechanism. When CGs for multiple VMs are created and backup is triggered, the CG may enter into a paused state frequently. However, the CG comes to active state after the snapshot creation is complete on the respective VM. Backup for RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines protected VMs with larger disk space using VADP mechanism consumes more time when IOs are in progress. The CG remains in paused by system state only during the snapshot creation phase. When a failover event occurs, the original VM is converted into a shadow VM, which causes the PPDM backup process for that VM to fail. Transparent Snapshot Data Mover (TSDM) protection mechanism in PPDM for RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines protected VMs is not supported. To avoid potential conflicts or operational issues, you must maintain a minimum interval of at least one hour between snapshot creations.
Architecture	All vRPA clusters in a system must have the same number of vRPAs.
Browsers	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines supports the latest versions of Google Chrome™, Mozilla Firefox™, Apple Safari™, and Microsoft Edge™. NOTE:Internet Explorer™ is not supported.
CPU	The resources (memory and CPU) of a running vRPA can be increased but not decreased. You can do the modifications only when the vRPA is powered off and the applied changes take place after rebooting of the vRPA.
Email Alert	When setting up RecoverPoint for the first time, the email alert that is sent to the support email address does not work because the email alerts are configured with the retired EMC domain.
High availability	A single-node vRPA cluster does not support high availability.
HTML5 UI	perform the following workaround steps to resolve limitations when using the HTML5 UI: Use RestAPI or CLI to report DR activities (basic reporting and audits). Use RestAPI or CLI to perform statistical analysis of system usage and performance. Use RestAPI or CLI to perform Consistency Group Replica Copy RPO or Protection Window or Journal Lag.
Supported SPBM policies	The vSAN ESA datastore supports the following default storage policies only: vSAN ESA Default Policy - RAID5 vSAN ESA Default Policy - RAID6 The vSAN datastore supports the following default storage policy only: vSAN Default Storage Policy VVol supports the following default storage policy only: VVol No Requirements Policy NFS/VMFS supports the following default storage policy only: Datastore Default policy NOTE: RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines supports configure per disk, and disk can be mixed provided the customer has selected default policies that are mentioned above. Do not change the Storage policy set by RecoverPoint. However, if changed, ensure to set the above-mentioned supported storage policy for the VMs and its associated VMDKs. When assigning policies, follow these guidelines: At the Datastore (DS) level, assign policies that are supported by the specific DS type. For Virtual Machine Disks (VMDKs) of Virtual Machines (VMs), assign policies that are compatible with RecoverPoint mentioned in the supported policies here.
NDU	Supports an upgrade from 6.0 SP1 and later to 6.1 with or without upgrading the operating system (VC/ESXi) upgrade. 6.0 SP1 or later does not support VM protection of IDE disk. NOTE:Consult the RecoverPoint for VMs Installation and Deployment Guide, and for NDU, see Appendix B topic Trust Splitter and Jiraf vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) URLs in vCenter.
Networking	If the NTP server is defined as a hostname, vRPA clusters cannot be deployed. The NTP server must be defined as IP addresses (you can define up to two NTP servers).
	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines is supported in environments that use VLAN tagging (802.1q). vRPAs do not tag the traffic that they send.
	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines is not supported in environments that use IP L2 prioritization (802.1p).
	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines is not supported in environments that use Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) to provide packet classification for Quality of Service (QoS) management.
	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines does not support Network Address Translation (NAT) between vRPAs. vRPAs that require other vRPAs in the system can be accessible using the configured IP addresses.
Plugins	The HTML5 plugin does not support standalone ESXi hosts (that is, an ESXi host without an ESXi cluster). As a workaround, you can add a standalone ESXi host to an ESXi cluster.
Plugins	Use the HTML5 plug-in as your primary client. For operations that are not supported through the HTML5 plugin, use the CLI, or RestAPI. See the RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines HTML5 Plugin Administrator's Guide for a list of unsupported operations. NOTE:This limitation is applicable to RecoverPoint for virtual machine 6.0 or later.
Replication	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines does not support replication of encrypted VMs, but does support replication of VMs residing on encrypted vSAN datastores.
	Replicating a virtual machine with fault tolerance enabled is not supported.
	Replication of independent persistent disks is supported.
Security	Security level "Authenticate" is not supported. Supported levels include "Nonsecure," and "Authenticated and Encrypted."
Snapshots	ESXi server operations (such as vMotion, snapshots, or cloning) on VMs that are configured as vRPAs in a vRPA cluster are independent of RecoverPoint. RecoverPoint receives no notifications from VMware that these operations are occurring. When such operations occur, RecoverPoint enters a full sweep condition, an error state that requires reconfiguration to correct. Any restore operation that uses a specific snapshot detects the error and stops responding. Recovering from this condition requires reconfiguration of the vRPA. To prevent this situation, see to the RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines Installation Guide before restoring and detaching the vRPAs from their relevant clusters or before taking a RecoverPoint snapshot. RecoverPoint for virtual machine 6.0 or later wont support snapshots on protected VM. See the section I/O Filter Guidelines and Best Practices for more information.
Snapshots	The number of snapshots that can be taken is unlimited. The users can fetch more points in time by clicking the zoom-in icon.
Splitter	For storing splitter configuration information, a persistent scratch location on the ESXi host is required. The scratch location (/scratch/log) requires at least 500 MB of free storage space on a permanently available persistent storage device. Each splitter must have a stable and continuous connection to the scratch partition. It is recommended that each ESXi host has a scratch location that is configured on its own dedicated datastore.
	Do not remove the files emcjiraf.v00, emcsplit.v00, Kdriver.t00, and k.b00 from the directories /tardisks and /bootbank.
	RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines manages the RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines JCD storage policy, which must not be altered under any circumstance.
Suspend, resume.	Suspend and resume tasks (or hibernation-like functionality) of a running vRPA are not supported and may lead to data corruption.
vSphere	To clone a copy VM, you must first use the Test a Copy wizard to enable image access, and then power off the virtual machine. If the virtual machine is not powered off, a VMware snapshot is created, which can cause data corruption.
	Whenever you try to protect a VM with BootOrderSection and SPS entries in the OVF file, you cannot create the copy VM regardless of the availability of a proper storage policy. This is a known issue, which has been resolved in VMware vCenter version 8.0.3 and later.
	Upgrading VMware tools on the vRPAs is blocked, strictly unsupported, and may lead to unwanted results. A default version of VMware Tools is installed and shipped with vRPAs. Do not upgrade this special version of VMware Tools.
	Cross-vCenter vMotion on protected, replica, and vRPA VMs are unsupported. Production and replica VMs should be unprotected before performing the cross-vCenter vMotion. They can be protected on the target vCenter after vMotion is completed.
	Manipulating RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines tags and custom attributes is strictly unsupported and may lead to undesired results.
	Migration of custom attributes to tags for RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines attributes is strictly unsupported.
	Upgrading both vCenter and ESXi servers from currently supported versions is not supported.
RDM support	Raw Device Mapping (RDM) support is no longer available; instead, Virtual Raw Device Mapping (vRDM) is supported.
Shared VMDK support	Shared VMDK is not supported in 6.x.
Microsoft clustering support	RP Splitter uses VAIO and VSCSI filters for data replication. vSCSI filters and I/O filters are not supported with clustered VMDK(In particular SCSI-3 (such as used by MSFC)).
VTPM	Virtual Trusted Platform Module for VMs in RPA is not supported.
Configuration	RecoverPoint does not support configuring Prod and Remote vRPA clusters under single VC since this would be a Single point of failure when VC goes down. To have a single VC, it should be configured as a Single vRPA Cluster with "Local Replication." RecoverPoint always recommends having a remote RPA cluster in different VC and not within the same VC.
RPC Upgrade	Upgrade is not supported for 6.0.3 and later versions. Required Steps: Uninstall the current (old) RPC version. Install the new RPC version 6.1 as a fresh deployment. Once the RecoverPoint Plugin 6.1 is configured, do not install RecoverPoint clusters on versions earlier than 6.1.
License	To ensure smooth license functionality, it is recommended to deploy one RPC per vCenter.