PlateSpin Forge

PlateSpin Forge 11.1 Detailed Technical Specifications

Supported Windows configurations

PlateSpin Forge® 11.1 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 any supported Windows system. Forge mirrors the Microsoft support of BIOS and UEFI firmware. Disks must be partitioned with the MBR or GPT (up to 57 partitions) disk partitioning formats. Support includes both file-level and block-level replications for servers, except as noted.

Servers
  • 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 only block-level replications.

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 server-based Microsoft Failover Cluster
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 server-based Microsoft Failover Cluster
Hyper-V hosts
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V Role
  • Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V Role
Desktops
  • Windows 8.1 (requires the High Performance power plan)
  • Windows 8 (requires the High Performance power plan)
  • Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions
Supported Linux distributions

PlateSpin Forge 11.1 supports protection for the following distributions of Linux. It supports only the EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, REISERFS, XFS, and NSS (Open Enterprise Server only) file system on any supported Linux system. Forge mirrors the Linux support of BIOS and UEFI firmware. Disks must be partitioned with the MBR or GPT (up to 57 partitions) disk partitioning formats. Support includes only block-level replications using a blkwatch driver.

Servers
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, 5, 6, and 7
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, 10, and 11
  • Open Enterprise Server 11 SP1 and 11 SP2
  • Oracle Linux (standard kernels based on supported RHEL distributions; excludes Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel)
  • CentOS 4, 5, 6, 7
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 11.1 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 5.5 GA2 Update 2 as the protection VM container.

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.