Novell FILE SYSTEM FACTORY 1.2.1 - ADMINISTRATION Manual page 83

Backfill "Enforce Paths" Mode
During a full backfill operation, the administrator has the capability of selecting the
"Enforce Paths" option. This option will instruct File System Factory™ to fully analyze
the location of each user's home directory. If the directory is not in a location pointed to
by the applicable policy, the data is moved to a location specified by the policy.
This is a very powerful feature of File System Factory™ in that it may be used to move
user data to a different volume or server.
Consider the following 2 "Enforce Paths" scenarios:
Scenario #1:
Bob has home directories for 20,000 users on 8 NetWare 4.11 servers. He would like to
move everyone to a new set of 4 NetWare 6.0 servers.
Bob should create a File System Factory™ policy that points to the 4 NetWare 6.0
servers. He should then assign that policy to the containers holding the user objects.
Finally, he should perform a full backfill operation against the containers using the
"Enforce Path" option.
All users home directories will be moved from the 4.11 servers and load balanced across
the 6.0 servers. All trustee assignments and file system attributes will be moved
seamlessly. Bob can even define a schedule for the migration and set bandwidth throttling
parameters so that network and server performance will not be affected during normal
business hours. See the section on scheduling below for more information.
Scenario #2:
Ann is the administrator of a network with 7,500 employee user accounts. Ann has not
given the majority of her user's home directory storage. She would like to do this now
using 5 NetWare 5.1 servers that she runs. She is somewhat hesitant about doing this now
given that she anticipates installing a 3-node NetWare 6.0 server cluster connected to a
SAN in about eight months.
Part 1: Ann should not wait. She should define a Policy pointing to her 5.1 servers. Then
associate the policy with her users. Lastly, she should issue a full backfill operation
against the containers holding her users. In a flash, all of her users will have managed
disk storage on the network where they can be productive for the next eight months.
Part 2: Eight months later, Ann has her new cluster and SAN installed. She should then
modify her Policy that she defined in Part 1 above by adding path definitions so that it
points to the SAN-connected cluster. She should remove the path pointers to the 5.1
servers. Finally, she should run a full backfill operation against the user containers using
the "Enforce Path" option.
All user home directories will be moved from the 5.1 servers to the SAN-connected
cluster seamlessly. Ann can then decommission the 5.1 servers or use them for some other
purpose.
Scheduling and Throttling
During a full backfill operation, particularly against a container or large group, the
resulting application of changes in policy associations has the potential to move large
amounts of data. In some environments, this may detrimental to the network, especially at
certain times of certain days.
Given the school scenario above where data is being moved between schools over T-1
connections, it is feasible to expect that this operation could use all of the bandwidth
Novell File System Factory™ Administrator's Guide 82
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