Software Update 1.2 for Microsoft Azure StorSimple Appliance

View products that this article applies to.

This article describes an update that fixes some issues and contains physical appliance software changes and improvements in Microsoft Azure StorSimple Appliance.

For additional details, see the release notes.

↑ Back to the top

New features and improvements

This update contains the following new features and improvements:

Migration from Microsoft Azure StorSimple 5000-7000 series to StorSimple 8000 series devices. This release introduces the new migration feature that allows the StorSimple 5000-7000 series appliance users to migrate data to StorSimple 8000 series physical appliance or a 1100 virtual appliance. The migration feature has two key value propositions:
- Business continuity by enabling migration of existing data on StorSimple 5000-7000 series appliances to the 8000 series appliances.
- Improved feature offerings of the StorSimple 8000 series appliances such as the following:
  - efficient centralized management of multiple appliances through StorSimple Manager service
  - better class of hardware and updated firmware
  - virtual appliances
  - data mobility
  - features in the future roadmap
Availability in Azure Government Portal. StorSimple is now available in the Azure Government portal.
Support for other cloud service providers. Other cloud service providers that are supported are Amazon S3, Amazon S3 with RRS, HP and OpenStack (beta).
Update to latest Storage API. With this release, StorSimple is updated to the latest Azure Storage API. StorSimple 8000 series devices running GA are using versions of the Azure Storage Service APIs older than February 12, 2012. As per the announcement on removal of Storage Serviceversion, by December 10, 2015, these APIs will be deprecated. This release contains the update to the latest version of the Storage service APIs. Make sure that the customers apply the StorSimple 8000 Series Update 1.0 before December 9, 2015. If they cannot do so, StorSimple devices will stop functioning correctly.
Support for Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS). With the upgrade to the latest version of the Storage API, 8000 series will also support Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS) in addition to Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) and Geo-redundant Storage (GRS). Refer to blog post for additional details.
Enhanced initial deployment and update experience. In this release, the installation and update experiences are enhanced. The initial installation through the setup wizard now performs in-place network validations. Additional cmdlets are provided to aid the user with troubleshooting networking and initial deployment of the device. The update process now incorporates pre-checks for controller, hardware component health, DATA 0 connectivity, and network connectivity within and outside the data center network.