5.5 Dynamic Storage Technology for CIFS Server

Dynamic Storage Technology (DST) for Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES) 2 SP3 Linux is an information life-cycle management technology that uses a policy-based approach for relocating data between two Novell Storage Services (NSS) volumes located on different devices, and transparently provides a unified view of the file tree to users. You specify policies that classify data to be moved by its frequency of use, filename, file type, and file size. Policy enforcement is automated with scheduled and on-demand runs of the policies. DST allows you to seamlessly tier storage between high-performance and lower-performance devices.

For example, you can establish policies that keep frequently-used mission-critical data on high-performance devices, and move rarely accessed less-essential data to lower-performance devices. Backup can be performed separately on the two volumes, which allows for different backup schedules.Dynamic Storage Technology enables you to manage data more efficiently for the enterprise and in doing so, the enterprise can potentially realize significant cost savings in storage management.

CIFS server for Linux provides the CIFS services for NSS volumes on Linux. Dynamic Storage Technology is a component of NCP Server.

Enabling DST: DST is automatically enabled when the shadow volume is added to the primary volume.

CIFS DST supports only NSS volumes being used as shadow volumes. If you plan to use DST, you need to install NSS when you install CIFS server and Dynamic Storage Technology. The NSS volumes must meet the Planning to Create DST Shadow Volumes in the OES 2 SP3: Dynamic Storage Technology Administration Guide.

DST for CIFS server that allows you to specify a shadow relationship between two volumes, which forms a shadow volume pair. The secondary directory tree structure, or shadow file tree, shadows the primary file tree. For more information, see Planning for DST Shadow Volumes and Policies in the OES 2 SP3: Dynamic Storage Technology Administration Guide.

DST presents a unified view to users of the subdirectory trees on each volume. The primary file tree and secondary file tree have the same directory structure so that each subdirectory appears in both locations as data is moved between the two volumes. The primary tree and the secondary tree are overlaid to create one virtual volume tree that is transparently presented to the users. The CIFS users are not aware of the actual physical location of the files. For more information, see Providing a Merged View for Users in the OES 2 SP3: Dynamic Storage Technology Administration Guide.

For more information about Configuring Global Policies for DST see the OES 2 SP3: Dynamic Storage Technology Administration Guide.

NOTE:A tech preview version of secondary NSS volumes on remote OES or NetWare server is now available with OES2 SP3 release.