1.  Introduction

This section will provide you with an overview of the new release updates of Dbvisit Standby MultiPlatform v11 (StandbyMP).
StandbyMP v11 is a major update with an new multi platform architecture, all-new user interface, and support for Microsoft SQL Server.
Due to the volume of improvements and changes a changelog has not been provided.

Key new features include:

• Multi platform architecture enables Oracle and SQL Server Disaster Recovery from one common control center.

• Highly intuitive GUI, where all DR configurations can be viewed and managed from a single page.

• Intelligent activation for Oracle allows failover to specific “safe” activation points when using a log application delay.

• Multi-database actions, even across platforms.

• Real-time, distributed, event-driven communication.

• Greater scalability with the ability to manage hundreds of database hosts and DR configurations.

• Support for Oracle SE2HA (Standard Edition2 High Availability) from StandbyMP v11.1.0

• Multiple standby databases for SQL Server are supported from StandbyMP v11.1.0

• Support for ODA KVM with StandbyMP version 11.2

• Support for PostgreSQL introduced with StandbyMP version 11.5
  
  

2.  Supported Databases and Operating Systems

Dbvisit Standby MultiPlatform caters for the following operating systems:

• Linux

  • Oracle Linux 6, 7, 8 and 9(64 bit)

  • Red Hat 6, 7 ,8 and 9(64 Bit)

• Windows (See known issues below)

  • Windows Server 2012 and above (64bit)

Dbvisit Standby MultiPlatform supports the following Oracle Database versions:

• Oracle Database 10gR2 (10.2.0.5 recommended) - If using ASM 11gR2 version required for Graceful Switchover 

• Oracle Database 11gR2

• Oracle Database 12cR1 and R2

• Oracle Database 18c

• Oracle Database 19c

• Oracle Database 21c

• Oracle Multi-tenant for Oracle SE2 is supported

  • New pluggable databases can be added to an existing primary database, which will be propagated to the standby database when you send and apply archivelogs.

  • Max of 3 pluggable databases is allowed in the primary databases. If you are adding more than 3 pluggable databases, please contact Dbvisit support.

• Oracle Database 23ai

Dbvisit Standby MultiPlatform supports the following Microsoft SQL Server Database versions:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Onwards

• All versions of Microsoft SQL Server on Linux Platforms.

3.  Known Issues

• Graceful Switchover with SQL Server InMemory tables is not supported.

• Dbvisit Standby currently only supports ipv4, not ipv6.

• Dbvisit Standby includes Oracle 12.2 Instant Client libraries by default. If your system has a different version of Oracle installed, it is possible under some rare circumstances for a library version conflict to occur. If you experience any errors similar to "PRKN-1008: Unable to load the shared library orasrvmhas12.dll", you can usually resolve them easily by renaming this library in the dbvisit/standby folder to "orasrvmhas12.dll.12.2" or by using replacing the Instant Client libraries in $DBVISIT_BASE/standbymp/oracle or $DBVISIT_BASEdbvisit/standbymp/oracle/lib (depending on your operating system).

11.7.3 (18 Aug 2024)

Improvements:

• PROJECT-1101 - Error messages relating to NOLOGGING alerts could appear in dbvctl tracefiles even when there was no problem. These spurious errors should no longer occur.

• PROJECT-1220 - A problem that prevented using custom scripts for Switchover and Activation on Windows platforms has been fixed.

• PROJECT-1283 - An unintended validation prevented the use of some characters in the user name setting in the global email settings. Any characters can now be used in this setting.

• PROJECT-1286 - The Linux installer now trims trailing spaces from entered host names and port numbers.

• PROJECT-1305 - A problem that could prevent activation when the primary server is unavailable and the control center has been restarted has been fixed.

• PROJECT-1555 - Some Japanese translations have been updated.

• PROJECT-1561 - A cosmetic problem with a prompt during the dbvctl -o switchover command has been fixed.

11.7.2 (24 Jun 2024)

Improvements:

This release has fixes only for PostgreSQL customers and has some fixes for translations in Japanese.

• PROJECT-1326, PROJECT-1327, PROJECT-1328 – When creating a PostgreSQL standby cluster using streaming, the chosen streaming replication user was later used for operations other than replication, leading to permission denied errors when performing Switchover. The replication user is now only used for the replication connection from the standby cluster to the primary cluster.

• PROJECT-1326, PROJECT-1327, PROJECT-1328 – The PostgreSQL Switchover action could fail when it is started when the standby cluster has a large amount of WAL to recover. In this scenario, when starting the standby cluster as the new primary, it can take some time before the cluster can be connected to. The Switchover process now waits for up to 10 minutes for the new primary cluster to accept connections.

• PROJECT-1501 – A cosmetic issue on the PostgreSQL Set Up Disaster Recovery page has been fixed.

• PROJECT-1193, PROJECT-1324 – Some Japanese translations have been improved. This change affects email notifications from the Observer and some text in the GUI for Switchover.

• PROJECT-1458 – When activating a PostgreSQL standby cluster in WAL Shipping mode, any WAL backups that have been transferred to standby but not yet applied to the standby cluster are now applied prior to activation.

11.7.1 (13 Jun 2024)

Improvements:

This release has fixes only for Oracle.

• PROJECT-1290 – It is now possible to select multiple Oracle configurations for Switchover even if they involve different databases on the same host.

• PROJECT-1335 – Attempting to create a standby Oracle database on Windows more than once for the same database could fail to create the associated Oracle service on subsequent attempts. The Windows service is now created on every attempt as long as it does not exist already.

• PROJECT-1443 – A deadlock error could be reported by some versions of Oracle after many iterations of sending archive logs if the archive logs are stored on ASM. The problematic command is now run only once instead of every time.

• PROJECT-1444 – Reporting Replicas did not work on Oracle versions earlier than 12.1 due to an incompatible query. The incompatible query is now skipped for Oracle versions earlier than 12.1, restoring the Reporting Replicas functionality.

• PROJECT-1445 – Some issues could occur when the output of the Oracle sqlplus command was configured to be in a non-English locale. The DBV_NLS_LANG and DBV_NLS_LANG_DR variables in newly-created DDCs now default to the “AMERICAN” locale.

• STDBY-899 – An error message displayed when an archive log is in use has been updated to include all relevant DDC variables.

11.7 (10 April 2024)

New Features:

PROJECT-1346 SQL Server Scheduled Read-only Mode
PROJECT-1322 SQL Server Transaction Log Backup Retention

Improvements:

PROJECT-1311 SQL Server databases with names containing dot and other characters can now be used.
PROJECT-1164 Improve standby database srvctl registration by adding dependent diskgroups/mountpoints
PROJECT-913 It is now possible to use Standby Update Delay when using RMAN to apply archive logs.

11.6.1 (Specific only to MSSQL)

Improvements:

PROJECT-1311 - DR Database creation fails when the primary database name has special characters in them.

11.6.0 (03 Nov 2023)

Improvements:

• PROJECT-1209 - Importation of existing PostgreSQL streaming configurations is now available!

• PROJECT-1262 - Fixed an issue with CSD prechecks in Oracle RAC to RAC configurations

• PROJECT-560 - Fixed issue caused by inconsistent case of host names for Oracle on Windows systems

• PROJECT-1195 - Fixed issues with Windows installer when specifying a custom install location

• PROJECT-857 - Oracle PDBs now work correctly with Snapshots

• PROJECT-862 - Fixed issue with CSD after failover for Oracle SEHA

• PROJECT-980 - Fixed issue with spurious email notification during Oracle switchover

• PROJECT-1093 - Observer fail counters are now reset when the Observer is disabled/enabled

• PROJECT-1178 - Fixed confusing mention of Automated Standby Update in task details for PostgreSQL where it is not applicable

• PROJECT-1189 - Fixed issues with Windows installer when the Administrators group name is localized to another language

• PROJECT-1213 - Fixed issue where Automated Standby Update could sometimes get stuck after Agent Manager restart

• PROJECT-1220 - Fixed issues with the UI for adding user scripts for failover and switchover

• PROJECT-1223 - Added validation of the roles assigned to the user specified for PostgreSQL streaming

• PROJECT-1235 - Added validation of the license key entered during PostgreSQL configuration creation

• PROJECT-1152 - Tweaks to the systemd unit definition created by the Linux installer

• PROJECT-1291 - Linux installer output tweaked to be more specific about the order of operations

• PROJECT-1289 - Fixed issues when creating SQL Server instances separately from the Configuration Creation process

• PROJECT-1259 - Fixed an issue with importing DDCs when upgrading from v10 to StandbyMP on Windows systems

• PROJECT-1243 - Fixed an issue with Observer and Automated Standby Update settings getting changed unexpectedly when other Configuration settings are changed

11.5.0 (02 Oct 2023)

New features:

• Introducing PostgreSQL support! Your favorite database disaster recovery tool now works with PostgreSQL (versions 10+) in addition to Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

Improvements:

• PROJECT-1220: Improved UX when adding custom User Scripts while on the Switchover or Failover page.

• PROJECT-1219: Newly-created Oracle configurations can no longer incorrectly show up as unlicensed.

• PROJECT-1217: Oracle configurations can no longer show up as unlicensed if the primary host is down.

• PROJECT-1208: Successful Automated Failover tasks performed while the primary database is down are no longer incorrectly marked as failed.

• PROJECT-1165: Various alerts for Oracle configurations (e.g. log gap alerts, Snapshot status alerts, etc) are now always cleared correctly when the situation is resolved.

11.4.1 (01 Sep 2023)

v11.4.1 Bug fixes:

• Fixed a potential file access conflict issue on Windows systems with Multiple configurations.

• Fixed Security vulnerability prone to SWEET32 attack(CVE-2016-2183)

• Fixed Security vulnerability for session cookie not using HttpOnly. Now, the session cookie uses HttpOnly.

11.4.0 (07 Jun 2023)

New features:

• New CLI feature: Controlling Automated Standby Update from the dbvagentmanager CLI. A new "dbvagentmanager auto-update" CLI utility is now available, allowing control over log shipping schedules without using the GUI. This is similar to the "daemon start/stop" commands from v10, only more powerful. Allows turning log shipping on/off, as well as adjusting settings and getting log shipping status. Works even if the Control Center is offline.

• New CLI feature: StandbyMP repository repair to resolve issues with repository corruption due to disk problems without having to re-install the product. A new "reset-repo" CLI utility is now available, allowing Dbvisit sqlite repositories to be repaired in case of corruption.

• New CLI feature: resetting the administrator password for the GUI is now possible as long as the user has access to the Control Center system command line.

• Task deletion: it is now possible to individually delete any user-initiated Task from StandbyMP, whether active or complete/failed. Deleting an active task will force-stop the task on the relevant system. Deleted Tasks disappear from the Task Timeline, but are still available to view on the dedicated Tasks & Events page for auditing purposes.

• Log file threshold events are now communicated via email. Alerts like "Transfer log gap exceeded" (and similar) are now sent to specified email addresses (previously, they were only visible on the StandbyMP Dashboard).

v11.4 Bug fixes:

• Fixed potential issue with Log File Compression failing during Switchover.

• Fixed issue with ODA KVM configurations attempting to connect to an incorrect endpoint when using ASM.

11.3.0 (16 Mar 2023)

New features:

PROJECT-940: Introducing "Custom User Scripts/SQL Server Application Switchover." Users can now create and add an optional system script to StandbyMP, which can then be used at the end of any successful Switchover or Failover operation with a single click. Also works from dbvctl CLI.
PROJECT-977: New Time Gap monitoring Observer option now available for SQL Server - receive alerts across multiple channels if your Configuration exceeds a preset time gap limit.
PROJECT-829: Support for SQL Server Encrypted Connections.
PROJECT-975: New "version mismatch" detection introduced product-wide, with appropriate user warnings in the GUI if any version conflicts are detected across StandbyMP components.

Improvements:

PROJECT-882/972: Important dbvctl listener process memory management updates for both Windows and Linux.
PROJECT-505: Support for AUTH LOGIN connections with Office 365/Gmail email accounts.
PROJECT-847: Observer UI/UX re-done.
PROJECT-595: Creating Oracle Configurations is now fully supported through CLI - StandbyMP CLI for Oracle now has full functionality in-line with v10.
PROJECT-855: Japanese translations updated.
PROJECT-835: UX improved for using NFS filesystems with SQL Server Transportable Media option.
PROJECT-859: SQL Server Windows-to-Linux Configurations now supply correct file system path defaults.
PROJECT-747: Fixed edge-case with Task history disappearing between Control Center re-installations.
PROJECT-969: No-logging Oracle warnings now stack in the GUI.
PROJECT-970: Fixed edge-case problem with deleting notification emails.
PROJECT-912: Fixed software upgrade issues when using custom installation locations.
PROJECT-968: Updated the GUI web certificate.

11.2.1 (24 Nov 2022)

• Fix for probable feature enhancement from Oracle with the 19.17 release. Refer link https://support.dbvisit.com/hc/en-us/articles/5825960076431 for further details.

11.2.0 (06 Oct 2022)

New features

• Oracle ODA KVM support

• UI refresh + enhanced functionality for wide displays

• Performance and network communication efficiency improvements

• Improved translations for all supported languages

Bugs squashed/Improvement description

• PROJECT-744: Improved behaviour for Oracle RAC -> single FS failover scenarios

• PROJECT-727: Reduced size and complexity of Support Packages

• PROJECT-728: Corrected Oracle Time Gap calculation for several edge-cases

• PROJECT-768: Significant improvements to process management and memory footprint in long-running environments

• PROJECT-735: Improved Automated Configuration Creation behaviour for busy SQL Server Instances

• PROJECT-736: StandbyMP Configurations can now be deleted if the DDC and/or Oracle base files no longer exist

• PROJECT-820: Better handling of Automatic Standby Update and Observer behaviour during Create Standby Database processes using Transportable Media

• PROJECT-832: Prevented several kinds of incorrect GUI behaviour if buttons double and triple-clicked

11.1.0 (26 May 2022)

New features

• Multi-language support (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish)

• Full Oracle SEHA support

• New APIs for 3rd party integration

• New CLI (Control Center and Agents)

• SQL Server: Automatic "New Database on Instance" Detection + Configuration and Standby Database Creation

• SQL Server: Multiple standby databases for a single source database

• SQL Server: Introducing the SQL Server Graceful Switchover Cascade: seamlessly switchover and then switchback a SQL Server Database Configuration with multiple standby databases while always retaining log shipping between all affected databases.

Bugs squashed/Improvement description

• Significant improvements made to CPU load/process efficiency/process management, vastly improving memory/CPU consumption

• Full SMTP connection debug info is now available

• Better handling for Windows PATH misconfigurations

• SQL Server Apply Delay now works as expected

• Missing logs now generate common-sense errors straight away instead of creating notifications on apply

• Improvements for Oracle Cascades

• CSD is now available as a multi-configuration Action for SQL Server

• Automatic Standby Update is now disabled when activating standby for DR testing in Oracle

• Fixed licence update UI & improved messaging for licence errors

• Warnings added for Switchover + Snapshots interaction

• The dashboard now shows the correct Instance state for Oracle RAC Configurations with multiple active nodes

• Improved custom backup location handling for 2+ Configurations sharing the same primary

• HOSTNAME_CMD files are now correctly migrated during upgrades

• It is now possible to use non-standard local addresses for SQL Server Instance discovery

• Added several new Events and notifications for various issues (Automated Standby Update failing, various log gap states, etc)

• Major performance improvements to UI rendering, which should now be much faster and more responsive when working with large numbers of Configurations & Tasks.