File Management/e discovery

[#1]

Hi Guys,

       We have recently moved some CIFS shares to our filers from some other heads I don't have to look after.  These shares are around 2TB each and contain AD users home drives.  We are having issues with the amount of data that users are storing on their home drives.

I've had Kazeon mentioned to me as a solution to provide us with reports on who is storing what type of files and how much data they are taking up on their home area.  I know no-one from netapp will endorse Kazeon as it's been bought by emc but has anyone had any experiences with it.

Or has anyone used any other software to scan large shares and produce reports/delete certain file types?  I'm lookoing for some help here as to how i can police peoples home areas.  Sadly i've been told that putting quotas on is not an optopn.  Ideally we'd like to avoid Kazeon and find sonmething cheasper as i've been told it's pretty expensive.  If that's the olny option though hen we nmay nee to go round that route.

Cheers

Chris

[#2]

Hi, I wasn't here when we purchased ours, but we use space observer - http://www.jam-software.com/spaceobserver/

It is a Windows based system that runs a DB and scans the file systems via the CIFS share.  Our largest space it is monitoring is 2.5TB, it takes 30 to 45 seconds to load that and 17 others, with another 2.1TB file system in there, and three more over 1TB.  Once it is loaded, the charts load in another 20 to 30 seconds, and you have line, bar, and pie charts.  Customizable ranges, Top 100 Files, user based reports, etc.

If you want something with colors and pics for management types who want quick reference it is pretty good, while still letting you see detailed info.

- Scott

[#3]

Thanks Very Much Scott.  I think that's the sort of thing that could help me.  It's pretty cheap and i'd of assumed it would not cope with the volumes we have but I know it can thanks to your reply.

How big is/are the DB/DB's that store the info on the shares?

Cheers

Chris

[#4]

Hi Chris,

     Our DB is 2.5GB, running in a VM that is Windows 2003 SP2, 4GB RAM and a two 2.8 GHz processors.

We gather info once per day, at 02:00 eastern.

- Scott

[#5]

One last question Scott.  Are you running standard oe enterprise edition.

Cheers

Chris

[#6]

Sorry Chris,

Honestly, I do not know, we are on version 4.3, but it does not give edition information.  I do know we are scanning the shares on three filers remotely and that the standard edition is not supposed to allow that.  There is nothing in the "about" or FAQs on the server....so I have to assume standard edition as I would think enterprise would say something about the edition.  Also I don't see SSH options, which enterprise should have too.

Looks like I have something new to follow up on.  If I can find out from the guys who have been here, I will let you know.

- Scott

[#7]

chris,

we had the same problem at the beginning. the kazeon appliances really helpfull, also expensive. to find out whats stored on your filer, it is possible to order netapp consultants and analyze the affected volume. after that you're able to define policies, delete files move files older than .. report files larger than .. and so one.

for daily doings we use "foldersizes", i think there is no only a small different to the jam-software, but mabye the costs?

http://www.foldersizes.com/

cheers

jens

[#8]

Thanks for the reply Jen.  I'll look into this software also.

Cheers

Chris