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Archive Manager - Product Information
Archive Manager is a one of a kind file archiving solution for files stored in network shares, there really is nothing else like it. What makes it so different? File archiving without a database, anywhere.Server Room 2

Archive Manager is compatible with all versions of Windows from Windows 2000 right up to Windows Server 2008/Windows Vista/Windows 7. The same installation package is even supported for installation on both 32 bit and 64 bit OS's. If it is installed on a machine running Windows 2008, Windows 7 or Windows Vista then Archive Manager can create true seamless hard links to archived files.

 Features:

- Flexible archiving options let you get to grips with your files the way that you want to. You can remove files from your file system that have not been used in the period of time you specify, using either the last modified or last accessed date.

- You can choose to either A) Just remove old files, back them up, then delete them or B) Move old files to an 'archive' (any shared empty folder on your network) and leave links behind in case users want accessed an archived file.

- Capable of handling everything from small branch office file systems, to the Pet Byte sized storage environments in the largest of data center.

- No database is ever used to store files in (or even pointers to files). The only database that is used by Archive Manager is the tiny configuration and job scheduling one which will run happily on any SQL2000 (or higher) instance, including the completely free SQL Express 2005.

- No software or filter drivers to install on your workstations. Archive Manager is a truely clientless solution.

- Unique 'Graveyard' job to end of life archived files, with the ability to group graveyarded files into correctly sized chunks ready to be written to removable media.

- Extreme reliability achieved by a simple and straight forward architecture.

Basic Principles

Unlike a a lot of other file archiving and HSM solutions Archive Manager does not try to cram files into a database like Microsoft SQL server. While modern databases can cope with this they were not designed for it. In theory this approach can lead to performance problems, reliability issues and it will almost certainly lead to security problems.

Archive Manager is designed to do one thing and do it well, provide you with the ability to manage the lifecycle of the files held in your network shares. It does not try to justify itself with features that most people don't want like 'version control' or similar. Its simple, focused, reliable and efficient.

Archive Manager uses a normal share on your network to create a mirror of your live file system's folder structure. Archived files are then moved into this mirrored structure. When they have been in the archive share for the period of time you specify without being recalled back to the live file system, they are written out to the location you choose to be backed up/deleted. This last step is done by a special type of job called a 'graveyard' job, which like normal 'archive' jobs is fully configurable and can be scheduled to run once, daily, weekly, monthly, manually or once at a specific time of your choosing.

The archive share itself can be located anywhere that you choose, thus giving you a centralised storage location that retains a great degree of flexibility.

The basic operation of Archive Manager is very straightforward, as the graphic below shows. This example demonstrates how Archive Manager can be deployed on a dedicated server, although many other configurations are possible including ones that require no additional hardware at all..

Archive Manager Deployment Diagram 

There are many ways that Archive Manager can be set up, and the example above is just one.

If you do not have a server that you wish to set up as a dedicated Archive Manager server you could just as easily use an existing machine, create a new share on the existing volume that contains your live files, compress it with Windows built in NTFS compression and install Archive Manager.

The files in your live file system, the installed copy of Archive Manager and your archive share are all seperate components of the same solution and as such can all be located separately (or all on the same machine, it's up to you).

Easy access to archived files

As well as a range of Windwos shortcuts, Archive Manager  can leave behind true seamless Hard Links to archived files. To the end user, archived files appear to still be in thier origional position, even though they are now located on a completely different machine. Unlike other solutions, Archive Manager does this without the need to install any kind of 3rd party filter drivers or other software on client machines.

Deployment

You do not need to spend significant amounts of money and time installing dedicated database servers like you would have to do with most other Archiving and HSM products. Often there are no additional hardware requirements at all. If you enable compression for your archived files then you can locate your archive on the same hardware that hosts your live file system and still have a net reduction in the size of your file system. If you do decide to deploy additional hardware then a suitable low end file server if needed (and it normally isn't) can be sourced for 1/5 the cost of an equivalent database server.

You get all the features you'd expect, like the ability for users to recall files that have been archived by clicking on a shortcut that is left behind by the archiving process, and a few that you wouldn't like the ability to archive over a WAN.

Server Room 1Archive Manager will even intelligently maintain its archives integrity with highly developed logic that runs as a background maintenance job. It keeps the archives NTFS permissions in sync with the live file system and detects when users delete or move recall shortcuts.

With the 'Post Job Tasks' feature' you can even launch other applications, trigger backup jobs, start de-fragmentation routines, start command line utilities and launch batch files on completion of a job.

Archive Manager is incredibly scalable and is just as at home in a 150 user environment as a 15,000 user environment. It can either be run against a file system during business hours, or it can be scheduled to run out of hours with flexible scheduling options.

It features true 'throttling' capabilities and it will happily work around open files without any issues what so ever.

 

 


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