Windows 7 Search within NetApp mapped drives?

[davidsimeone]

Is there (or will there be) the ability to index home drives (or any CIFS location for that matter) that reside on the NetApp, so that the contents of the files can be searched using the built-in Windows 7 Search?

Does anyone know if this is or will be supported by NetApp any time soon? Supposedly it’s supported for files that are on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server.

[radek_kubka]

Hi,

I don't think there is any problem in doing that - unless I am missing something.

Windows Search creates an index of files & folders, and whilst they may reside either locally, or on a remote share (e.g. on NetApp or, for the sake of argument, anything else really), the index itself is stored on the end-client workstation (& cannot me moved to a remote share).

Regards,
Radek

[kodavali · Accepted solution]

As Radek mentioned, there are no issues searching on NetApp filer using Win 7 search.  If you are looking for server side Indexing then we do not have. Win7 provides indexing on remote locations and will store the indexing information locally to default locaiton \ProgramData\Microsoft\Search. This default location can be moved to different location locally but not to remote share or a mapped drive.

[davidsimeone]

Thanks Radek and Kodavali. So it appears this capability has been there all along. Nonetheless from further reading, it does not seem to be a straigtforward endeavor. For example, here is an interesting thread offering various solutions (the first one not being viable, ie make available offline, and the last one (UNCFATPHInstaller.msi) not working w Win 7.)

http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/4616-indexing-network-share-locations.html

Regardless, bottom line is it it is not a NetApp issue. Thx again.

[cking22001]

I disagree. It is completely a Netapp issue IMHO. Netapp is pretty good at telling us to replace all our Windows file servers with Netapp filers but when we bring up the fact that we use Windows Search, well they start ho-hum'n...

If Netapp really wants to be helpful, they write a piece into their code that emulates the indexing on a Windows file server. And then any client running Windows Search and mapping a drive to a Netapp share can take advantage of the local index. I am not proposing that is simple but I am betting a whole lot of their customers are using Windows to access shares on the filer so it is not like a niche part of their business.

Currently, Search Server Express 2010 (using a SQL DB) works pretty well but that does not really integrate nicely with Windows search (that part is MS's problem and could be fixed by them). You can certainly search and find the files but there is a server (or many depending on much indexing you need) and without jumping through hoops you only get search results within a browser.

But Netapp can continue to claim that Windows Search does not scale and remind us that a NA filer can contains MILLIONS of files (like a Windows file server can't) and then walk away suggesting that they really don't think you need to have search. Really?

-ck

[olaf_hoetger]

Great post. It would be nice to have a comment on this from a netapp representative.

regards,

Olaf

[shaunjurr]

This isn't a NetApp issue at all.  The fact that we all have to live with gazillions of GB of unstructured data in the modern world is largely the result of Mickeysoft's marketing train and the fact that everyone has been brainwashed to think in a PC centric world.... NAS shares are just a bigger garbage can (dustbin) than ye' ole C: drive...

Now that fact that one can dump nearly endless amounts of information on largely unrestrained central file storage systems in the same unstructured manner that Bill Gates cursed us with under DOS is hardly NetApp's fault.  Indexing files on a per server basis helps very little for large enterprises anyway, so basically it is still a SOHO solution for a SOHO operating system. Sharepoint is a start in the right direction, but again, so hoplelessly imature and featureless that it will be years before it helps with any sort of major data structure changes.

NetApp does many things infinitely better than what Microsoft has managed to acquire/buy and has done it much longer.  Frankly, I've never seen a directory structure that everyone thought was intuitive and at the same time no huge outcries for being able to search everything.  Most people use their mailbox to find their way back to whatever was important, unfortunately.

Enterprise level archiving and search systems will probably have to play a larger role in the future as well since we are going to be stuck with the legacy of the PC world for a long time, but the closed proprietary formats make it all just that more difficult and finding a hundred files of the same name is hardly useful.  Again, this is an MS-created problem (like virus, insecure windowing systems, hopelessly immature mail servers, inseparable GUI's for management, etc), not really something that one can blame NetApp for. Getting rid of windows file servers saves infinite work with licenses and patching and virus scanning and makes backup and redundancy a management dream.

I, for one, am happy that I don't have to deal with the brokenness of Windows files any more than keep virus scanning running. 

[cking22001]

Being a MS hater/Netapp lover does little to advance the conversation. If a company touts itself as the end all be all in the file serving/NAS space you think they could dedicate a micropercents of their profits to actaully helping customers out.

-ck

[alessandro_difenza]

I completely agree with cking22001, even if this is or is not a netapp issue, if you put your files on a netapp appliance you can't index those files and this is a fact.

if netapp wants to replace ms fileservers must provide a solution to this issue, because if you put your files on a ms fileserver you can remotely index those files becuse they are indexed by the fileserver.

[cking22001]

Well, our maintenance is coming due so the NetApp guys are interested in us again. Had lunch with them but they are pretty clear that any sort of built in indexing solution is not on the roadmap. EMC is about as cold on the idea but they are happy to sell a solution from their vast bag of products.

Anyway, regardless of shaunjerr's rambling rants, Sharepoint indexing is actually working pretty well for some specific shares.

-ck

[steve_hummel]

If searching is such a useless feature, why does every (good) webpage, including Netapp's have a search function.  If you store data, you need to be able to search.  If it is sharable data, then the server that houses it needs to do the indexing so that it is efficient.  If you have 10, 100s, or 1000s of users all indexing shared data, you will have performance problems.

-Steve