Take the security issues for example. NTFS permissions are rarely, if ever preserved when software solutions moves files into a database. Database centred products normally work on groups of users having rights to see groups of Tables. You lose the granular control you will have set up with your NTFS permissions. This can lead to users being able to see files that they shouldn't if a solution is miss configured.

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..

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 different 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

In addition to its flexible deployment options Archive Manager gives you the choice of multiple options when actually archiving your files.

You can choose the types of files to archive, how long they should have been unused for and whether to use the date last modified or date last accessed.

In addition you can also decide whether or not leave shortcuts behind for archived files. You can leave 'Hard Links', per file 'recall' shortcuts, or folder level shortcuts behind for you archived files.

If both the machine that you are archiving files from, and the machine you are archiving them too are both running Windows 2008 Server (or possibly Windows Vista in the case of the machine hosting the archived files), then you can leave true 'Hard Links' behind for any files that have been archived.

These are different from 'Recall Shortcuts' and 'Folder Links' in that they actually redirect the file I/O to the archived file on the remote machine/partition, but as far as users/applications are concerned, archived files appear as they haven't even been moved. They look absolutely IDENTICAL to the origional file in every way.

Recall shortcuts are not true 'Hard Links' but they are very flexible and work with pre  2008/Vista systems, right back to Windows 95.  They pull a file back from an archive  when a user double clicks on them via a combination of windows shortcuts and scripts. They then open it for the requesting user. They look like this to the end user ..

If you choose to you can also add some text onto the front of each archived files filename to clearly indicate that the file has been archived.

Folder level shortcuts will actually allow users to browse the archive structure itself. Any files they access can then be auto returned to the live file system over night by the maintenance job. They appear to users like this...

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.

Archive 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.

This means that if a user moves a recall shortcut Archive Manager can be set up to scan the live file system, track the shortcut down and reconfigure the archived file as appropriate.

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 'throttling' capabilities as well as remote system monitors that let you see exactly what load is being placed on your servers when a job is running. It will happily work around open files without any issues what so ever.