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Novell Dynamic File Services is currently accepting beta applications. See the product overview below and apply if you are interested.

Product Overview

Novell Dynamic File Services is an information life-cycle management technology. It makes your essential data readily available to users, while tiering files efficiently across a pair of paths, referred to as a pair. You create policies to control how the files are distributed between the two paths.

A Dynamic File Services pair consists of two independent share paths in the same Active Directory domain, or on the same server in a Workgroup. Remote shares can reside on network attached storage (such as NetApp and EMC filers) and supported Windows server platforms. Dynamic File Services provides two pair types to address your storage needs: standard pair and retention pair.

The Dynamic File Services standard pair allows you to efficiently manage your storage across a pair of paths while giving users access to files on both. When users connect to a network share on the primary path, they see merged view of files. Users are not aware of where the files physically reside. Files on both paths are equally accessible to users. Dynamic File Services pulls data directly to the user from the primary path or the secondary path, depending on where the file is located.

The Dynamic File Services retention pair allows you to keep data that is actively used on the primary path, and to move static data that might occasionally need to be accessed to a retention repository on the secondary path. For example, the repository can store files that are not needed for everyday operations but must be retained for historical reference, or to comply with contractual or legal requirements. Files in the repository are not generally available to users. Only designated reviewers can access them via a Web-based Retention Review tool. You can schedule retention review events and notify multiple recipients about them. Reviewers determine the disposition of retained files in accordance with your company’s data retention policy. All retention review actions are audited.

A Dynamic File Services policy determines what files are moved between the two paths and when the policy runs. You can specify one or more conditions to be met, such as frequency of use, filename patterns, file types, file size, and file owners. Policy enforcement is automated with scheduled and on-demand policy runs. You can run multiple policies concurrently on a pair. You can also specify a list of files or folders to be moved during a one-time move from the primary path to the secondary path in a pair.

You can separately back up each path of a pair, which helps to narrow the time window needed for backing up critical data. For example, Dynamic File Services can seamlessly tier files between high-performance and lower-performance storage devices. You can establish policies that keep frequently used mission-critical data on high-performance storage devices, and move seldom-used less-essential data to lower-performance storage devices. The backup for essential files takes less time because the seldom-used files are stored on the secondary path, where they can be backed up separately and less frequently.

Qualifications

• Windows servers running Win 2003, Win 2008 or Win 7 using Active Directory or Work Group.
• Servers should have both local and remote storage. The remote storage may be part of an EMC or Net App storage device.
• There should be active users modifying and creating files to be operated on. Large and small data sets to work with.
• Windows server management skills are necessary to check for proper windows application setup and operation.

Apply here >

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.