PlateSpin Forge

PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Detailed Technical Specifications

Supported Windows configurations

PlateSpin Forge supports servers for English, French, German, Japanese, Chinese Traditional, and Chinese Simplified versions of Microsoft Windows for the following release versions and server configurations. It supports only the NTFS file system on supported Windows systems. Forge mirrors the Microsoft support of BIOS and UEFI firmware. Disks must be partitioned with the MBR or GPT disk partitioning formats. Support includes both file-level and block-level replications for servers, except as noted.

Note: Protection of Microsoft Windows Server 2016 servers and clusters requires VMware ESXi 6.0 or higher. For upgraded systems, support for Microsoft Server 2016 is not available without rebuilding to PlateSpin Forge 11.3 Appliance 4, which provides VMware 6.5 U1.

Servers
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 latest SP (32-bit)
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 (64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit)
  • Windows Server 2003 latest SP (64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2003 latest SP (32-bit)
Clusters

Support includes block-level replications with no driver. Driver-based block-based transfer is supported for incremental replications on Windows Server 2008 R2 and higher clusters on FC SANs only.

  • Windows Server 2016 server-based Microsoft Failover Cluster
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 server-based Microsoft Failover Cluster
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 server-based Microsoft Failover Cluster
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 server-based Microsoft Failover Cluster
Supported Linux distributions

PlateSpin Forge supports protection for the following distributions of Linux. It supports only the EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, REISERFS, XFS, and NSS (OES) file systems on supported Linux systems. Forge mirrors the Linux support of BIOS and UEFI firmware. Disks can be partitioned with the MBR or GPT disk partitioning formats. Support includes only block-level replications using a blkwatch driver.

Servers
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    • Versions: 4.x, 5.x, 6.0 to 6.9, and 7.0 to 7.3
    • Note: Support excludes the XFS v5 file system for RHEL 7.3 and distributions based on RHEL 7.3.
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
    • Versions: 9.x, 10.x, and 11 SP1 to 11 SP4
  • Open Enterprise Server
    • Versions: 2 SP3, 11 SP1 to 11 SP3, and 2015 SP1
    • Distributions based on SLES
    • Note: For OES 2015 SP1, Forge supports NSS32-bit pools up to 8 TB in size; NSS64-bit pools are not supported.
  • Oracle Linux (formerly Oracle Enterprise Linux)
    • Versions: distributions based on RHEL
    • Note: Blkwatch drivers for UEK and RHCK are available for Oracle Linux 6.7 to 6.9 and 7.0 to 7.3.
  • CentOS
    • Versions: distributions based on RHEL
Requirement for a blkwatch driver

Replication of protected Linux servers occurs only at the block level. PlateSpin Forge software requires a blkwatch driver compiled for a particular Linux distribution being protected. For a list of distributions that include the blkwatch driver, see Linux Distributions Supported by Forge in the PlateSpin Forge 11.3 User Guide.

If your distribution does not include the blkwatch driver, you can create a custom driver by following the steps found in the Knowledgebase Article 7005873.

Supported VM containers

PlateSpin Forge ships with VMware ESXi 6.5 Update 1 as the protection VM container.

National language support

PlateSpin Forge provides National Language Support (NLS) for installation and use on machines configured for English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, French, German, and Japanese languages. Documentation is available in these languages plus Spanish.

Web Interface access

Most of your interaction with the appliance takes place through the browser-based PlateSpin Forge Web Interface. Supported web browsers are:

  • Google Chrome, version 34.0 and later
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 11.0 and later
  • Mozilla Firefox, version 29.0 and later

Note: JavaScript (Active Scripting) must be enabled in your browser.