The recent release of Micro Focus Storage Manager 5.0 for Active Directory introduces a complete administrative interface makeover, as well as some impressive new capabilities designed to both ease administration and expand the product's management role in the network file system.

Some of these new features have been driven by customer requests, others by the File Analysis requirements of Gartner - more on that later.

New Administrative Interface

As part of the Micro Focus rebranding effort, the NSMAdmin administrative utility was renamed to SMAdmin and redesigned. Options that were previously available through three tabs are now more logically located across two. Additionally, there are more graphical links to administrative options.

The new SMAdmin has logically-arranged administrative options dispersed across two different tabs. Here you can see those of the Home tab.

Action Blocks

Action Blocks are a new means of creating specifications for file grooming or file vaulting. With Action Blocks, you no longer need to create the specific provisions for file grooming or file vaulting in the Storage Manager policy itself. You simply define these in an Action Block and then link the policy to the Action Block.

Action Blocks are created using the Action Block Editor. Once created, you can link to them when you are creating a Storage Manager policy or operation.

By linking to an Action Block, you no longer need to create or copy general and often-repeated policy settings.

Early reviews of Action Blocks by existing customers have been overwhelmingly positive.

Presently limited to file grooming and file vaulting, future releases of Storage Manager will include additional Action Block options.

Operations

Operations are actions that can be performed in Storage Manager that are not tied to a policy. With Storage Manager 5.0, you can perform vault and groom operations.

This new capability was partially driven by Gartner and its definition of File Analysis, which specifies that File Analysis tools have a way to "take action" on an organization's data growth. While "taking action" through Storage Manager policies has been available from the beginning, taking action on non-policy managed storage is now available through "operations."

In other words, through policies and now operations, Storage Manager can perform management tasks on all unstructured data (data not residing in a database) on the network. Some of the file system—such as home folders—might be managed through a Storage Manager policy. But others, including group folders, application folders, and system folders might not be. You could perform management actions on these non-managed folders through operations.

For example, a simple way of optimizing network storage is periodically cleaning up temp files. Using a product like File Reporter, you could generate a report to identify the locations of temp files, then use Storage Manager to create a new Action Block designed to delete these temp files. To invoke the deletion action, you'd create an operation and link to the Action Block. Scenarios like this could be used to delete a variety of file types, including old email post office archive files.

An example of a groom operation linking to an Action Block that deletes temporary files.

Active Directory to Active Directory Cross-Empire Data Migration

This new feature allows you to migrate data and associated NTFS permissions from one Active Directory forest to another. Similar in approach to the previously available eDirectory to Active Directory Cross-Empire Data Migration, this feature uses an easy-to-use wizard interface.

In an AD to AD Cross-Empire Data Migration, user and group object associations are mapped between one AD forest and another through the Identity Map. Once mapped, the folders, files, and permissions are migrated through a wizard.

Identical to how the previously-available eDirectory to Active Directory Cross-Empire Data Migration subsystem works, the AD to AD Cross-Empire Data Migration subsystem lets you use an identity map to first match objects between the two forests, then migrates the folders and permissions through a wizard interface.

Storage Manager and File Analysis

Since Gartner first identified the File Analysis market in 2014, Storage Manager, along with File Reporter have been recognized by the research organization as File Analysis tools available in the market today designed to "take action" on the exponential growth of data being stored by organizations.

To learn more about the role of Micro Focus File & Networking products in addressing File Analysis visit our File Analysis microsite located here.