Take Control of Free-Range Files

System administrators responsible for protecting and managing unstructured information are facing rapid storage growth and shrinking back-up windows, reducing overall data protection and increasing storage costs. All the while, end-users often store content on one of the most expensive storage mechanisms out there – the network file system. There is the perception of safety – content is stored on a company server insulated from a desktop hard drive crash – and off central management because the content is off the desktop. But, file systems are not managed content repositories with library services, indexes, and version control. On the contrary, file system content is virtually unmanaged and presents huge challenges to organizations.

For organizations worried about the unmanaged content sitting on file shares, Mimosa NearPoint™ File System Archiving (FSA) solution delivers multiple strategic benefits:

• Significant storage cost savings

• Improves storage management

• Back-up efficiency of file servers, containing thousands of unstructured information

• Under policy control, administrators can scan file servers, and index and archive files selected by various criteria (such as type, size, and age) 

As well, in keeping with Mimosa’s “zero-footprint” philosophy, the scan is performed without the need to place any agents on the file servers.

When the scan is completed, NearPoint captures, processes, and optionally stubs selected files from the source file system. Using NearPoint, administrators can copy or move old files or files not recently accessed to the archive, thus reducing the burden on file servers and removing content from high-end production servers. NearPoint FSA optionally allows customers to extend, or stub, files from the file server to NearPoint, directly reducing size on disk.

Figure 1:  Seamless Access to Stubbed Content

NearPoint FSA also provides global, single-instancing across all archived content—messages, attachments, files—dramatically reducing the amount of stored content. As users modify files on the file server, these changed files are kept as newer versions using block –level de-duplication on NearPoint, with only the changes (deltas) from the original file version being stored on NearPoint.

NearPoint FSA also eases the burden of consistent retention management and helps to combat the rising costs of eDiscovery. As an integrated content archive for email, files, and SharePoint content, NearPoint provides a one-stop shop for applying retention and disposition rules across all content. For legal discovery and adherence to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), NearPoint FSA provides a single repository to search for all electronic information from file servers and Microsoft Exchange Server.

All done while organizations maintain worker productivity, as users continue to access files in a seamless manner via stubbing or they can search for archived files alongside archived email directly in the Outlook interface.

Figure 1:  Search for files and emails directly in Outlook