Well, well, well, what do we have here. A new point release from our old pal gill. Looks to be feature rich and full of tasty morsels. You’ve heard it from me before <until I was blue in the face> but again if you aren’t using RecoverPoint for your local and remote replication needs then perhaps you would have more fun kicking yourself in the chest. Hey to each his own..

Anyways lets take a look at some key improvements shall we…source as follows here.

• Synchronous replication support-Not sure I fully get this statement, “Data can now be replicated synchronously over Fiber Channel”. Yeah, yeah, OK, I get it but wasn’t this a feature in 3.1? I assumed that all replication over FC albeit local or remote (stretched CDP) was synchronous.  Continuing on with the next statement, the fact that you now have the option to always replicate in sync mode or always replicate in async mode or dynamically float between the two (which was the default option) is a welcome change. Now forcing sync replication was possible in 3.1 but hardly intuitive. It was a force regulation,  snapshot granularity/write lag tweak <hut, hut, hike> from what I remember.
• Hardware Management GUI wizards- You cant go wrong with GUI’s in my opinion. It simplifies common tasks providing workflow to multi step processes. Personally, I don’t feel I have to assert my smarts, my manhood, by truck in’ it up at the command line when a task can easily be accomplished via the GUI. I hear you, CLI has its place (i.e. scripting mundane tasks, larger env’s maybe) just don’t follow the herd on this unless you enjoy inflicting pain to yourself.  But hey, you know me I’m into simplicity as a virtue, doing what is right and efficient for our customers and ultimately making it reproducible and comprehendible for others to grasp. I don't have to manage these environments but I have a vested interest in seeing our customers succeed. Remember its not about you : ) Anyways here are the additions..
  • RecoverPoint Installation Wizard-this was available in 3.1 (or something like it) but not part of the RP management application.
  • Add New RPAs Wizard - HIP
  • RPA Replacement Wizard -HIP
  • Upgrade tool-Assists in providing NDU’s of 3.1 code to 3.2 code – HOO-
  • New RP/SE Installer Wizard -RAY
• New Management Application GUI wizards
  • Getting Started Wizard-Guides user through RP licensing, system reporting, alert settings for new installs.
  • New Consistency Group Wizard
  • Add Replication Set Wizard
  • Journal Volumes Wizard
• More Granular System Monitoring
  • Increased awareness around looming limits, i.e. licensing, RPOs, specific policies, etc.
• Stat tools-Optimized, Unified, and Amalgamized
  • Granularity of stats available at the per minute, hour, and day (per year available for this time frame)
  • Also available a tool that binds these stats into a graphical representation within Excel.
• vCenter Server Monitoring
  • This by far is one of the most magnetic features worth mentioning, integration between vCenter and the RecoverPoint Management. Yes you now have view-only insight into the replication status of each LUN within vCenter via RP GUI. In addition RP can even generate alerts informing you when a VM is no longer protected. Nice to see that VMware partnership leveraged a bit more..
• LDAP support
  • I hear the need for this a lot, it was only a matter of time before it made its appearance and the time is now. Complete integration with MS-AD.
  • With that said the Security-Admin role as been added to allow configuration of LDAP, change users, roles, and security levels. Sadly the “admin” account has been stripped of said permissions and has taken on custodial duties at a local Dairy Queen in Poughkeepsie NY, a real EGO killer if you ask me…
• Support for CLARiiON LUNs greater than 2TB and attachment of up to 2048 LUNs-CLARiiON Splitter Only
• Online help
  • Not sure if you ever noticed but prior to 3.2 there was no online help within the RP Management GUI, peachy addition if I must say.
• ESRS support
  • Now Available-Remote preemptive support, monitoring and auditing via secure means by EMC Support for your RPA’s.
• Improved SAN Diagnostics
  • Of note here, during the initial installation it is no longer possible to continue forth if there are any errors during the SAN Diagnostic phase.
• AND FINALLY VMWARE SRM TOLERENCE OF CLR CONFIGURATIONS WITHIN RECOVERPOINT IS NOW SUPPORTED. Note: Updated compatible SRA is not available from VMware’s site as of 6-26-2009.

Well that’s about it for now. This list is certainly not definitive as it only focuses on the new features. So I encourage you visit the source for more detail especially in the way of what this release fixes. Happy hunting and bravo EMC, thanks for making a great product even better!