Back in Spetember 2008, the latest version of iShared was released by the new owners Blue Coat. Here is a rather overdue post summarising what has changed in this product. It is also a warning post to existing iShared users, as per emails we have sent to people last year ishared as a product has been terminated by Blue Coat and this has big implications to current users.
iShared is a fantastic WAFS (Wide Area File Services) product, especially for those of you who were wanting a solution for sharing files on Windows machines using standard Windows shared drives across the WAN. Unfortunately, as Blue Coat had/have their own WAFS solution, when they bought Packeteer they decided to kill of iShared.
As such you are now unable to buy new iShared licenses/appliances, and you do not want to allow your support contacts to expire. The reason that allowing you contract to expire would be bad is that you will not be able to obtain a new license key, or latest software etc. Only existing support contacts can be renewed, new licenses can not be obtained. With iShared have a short future ahead of it, it is well worth staying up to date on software revisions so that you are always on the version that the diminishing support team is most familiar with and any bug fixes will be applied to.
Which brings us to the latest software releases 3.7.2 (or 3.7.2.0.8 to be entirely accurate).
3.7.2 is for the most part a version designed to allow the Brocade WAFS users (a OEM version of iShared) to transition to the latest verion of software. If you are a Brocade WAFS user, you need to get onto this iShared version as no newer version of the software will be released under the Brocade name.
In addition this, there are performance and stability enhancements as follows (from the official release notes):
TCFS Switched to a Disconnected State
When a read request took too long to complete (due to connection timeout, network down, or socket not
connected errors), TCFS (an internal iShared driver) would be switched to a disconnected state even the
remote appliance had a stable TCP connection to the 5521 port on the core appliance.
Loss of Data From Cache
Occasionally during a reboot or an upgrade of iShared software, the data on the cache appliance would
become cold. This issue was due to a race condition due to the new policy based infrastructure added in
3.7.1.1 and the existing directory refresh logic. This issue has been addressed.
Crash During Re-Integration
When a remote appliance is reconnected to a core appliance, an overflow condition could cause TCFS to
crash during re‐integration. A new TCFS driver prevents this problem.
“Media Is Write-Protected” Error
Resolved an error where attempts to open a warm file in read‐only mode from an iShared remote appliance
that is disconnected from its paired core appliance resulted in the error message, “The media is write‐
protected.”
iSharedFSFilter Failed to Load
When the CorpusLocation was removed from the iShared appliance’s Windows Registry as an effort to
disable corpus on the cache and the core, the iSharedFSFilter would fail to load. A code change has been
made to accommodate conditions where the CorpusLocation is disabled.
Failure to Mount Folders With System Attributes
Appliances running iShared versions 3.4.x through 3.7.1.x would hide folders with system attributes, such
as those on a Storage Area Network (SAN). iShared 3.7.2 resolves this problem.
Failure of Software-Only Full Install to Recognize Installed DrivesiShared 3.7.2 resolves a problem where hard drives were either not found or did not show the correct size in iShared Software‐Only Full Install Deployments.
Unexpected WAN Disconnections
Occasionally, unexpected disconnections were seen between the ARC core and the ARC remote if the
connections were idle for a reasonable time. A new TCP socket keep‐alive function resolves this problem.iShared Console Would Not Display More than 50 Edge Appliances
When more than 50 Edge appliances are paired with a Core iShared appliance, the iShared Console would
display an error while displaying the inclusion list or exclusion list. The iShared Console now correctly
displays up to 75 Edge appliances.
There are also a number of known issues in the iShared software that have NOT been resolved, these are (again from the official release notes):
Bandwidth Optimization Statistics Graph Display Inaccurate
When very large downloads and very few uploads are performed through the iShared Edge appliance, the
Bandwidth Optimization Statistics bar graph may show the WAN_OUT bar to be higher than the WAN_IN
bar. This represents the actual number of bytes sent on the WAN, and is not an indication of performance
problems. Under these circumstances, the Bandwidth Optimization Statistics bar graph on the Core appliance shows
a more accurate picture.
Folder Move Fails
When a sub‐folder that has one or more files opened is moved from one folder to another through iShared,
the move fails. The folder appears to move but after a few seconds it reappears in the source folder and
disappears from the destination folder. Additionally, the folder is no longer in the iShared Edge appliance
cache.Password Expired Error Message
After upgrading iShared software, the iShared console returns a “password expired” error message upon
an attempt to log in. Before you can successfully log into the iShared console, you need to reset the
password expiration on the iMS Server:
Prepopulation Jobs Cleared Upon GUI Refresh
Prepopulation jobs entered on the edge appliance can get cleared if the GUI is refreshed prior to saving the
entries. The work around is to make sure the new entries are saved prior to refreshing the GUI screen.
Prepopulation Jobs on Core Appliances Overwritten
If prepopulation jobs are entered on the core, and then additional entries are made on the edge without
refreshing the edge’s screen, the core entries will be overwritten. This is because a common file serves both
the core and edge. The work around to is make sure the edge screen is refreshed before making additional
entries.
Remove USB Devices During Install
Any USB devices connected to the server must be removed prior to running the iShared Full Install installer.NTFS Error Message
After logging into the active node of a failover cluster, the following error message displays: NTFS Volume
Maintenance Utility encountered a problem and needed to close. This message can be ignored.
Cluster Configuration
The iShared web console may not respond when configuring a failover cluster if the standby node is
unreachable or out of service.
SRMSVC Errors Generated on R2 Operating System
Frequent error events occur generated by the SRMSVC service on an R2 version of MS Windows Server
2003.
Charts Not Showing in iShared Console
Occasionally the charts and statistics graphs in the iShared console would not display. This issue has been
linked to a database corruption of the iMS Agent.
There are known workarounds for some of these issues, contact us if you are encountering any of them.
