F5 ARX-VE, Planning Manual

Page: 37 / 64

Planning for a Namespace
ARX Site Planning Guide 1 - 31
automatically discover key attributes about your file storage environment,
such as volumes, shares, exports, security settings, file system settings, and
estimated size required for metadata storage. For more information and to
download a free trial version, see:
http://www.f5.com/products/data-manager/
Choosing a Filer Share for the Volume Root
When a client creates a new file in the root (/) of a managed volume, the
namespace software cannot deterministically choose an intended back-end
share for the new file. By default, it places the new file in the volume’s first
imported share.
This filer share is said to hold the volume root . Choose the root share for
each of your volumes in advance. Configure the root share first as you
configure your namespace volumes.
As an alternative, you can configure namespace policy to distribute new
files and directories amongst several shares in the volume. This policy is
called
new-file placement policy in a share farm , and it is described in the
ARX
®
CLI Storage-Management Guide .
Best Practices for Share Management
Once an external share is imported into a managed volume, you should
manage the share entirely through the ARX. Specifically, do not edit any
files in the share (especially the .acopia directory at the share’s root), and do
not remove the share or make it unavailable.
No Overlapping Shares
If one share contains another (a fairly common scenario in a CIFS
environment), only import
one of the shares. Overlapping shares, imported
into one or more namespaces, invariably cause namespace corruption. For
example, suppose you have a C:\home share that contains C:\users\jrandom
and C:\users\juser. You can import C:\home into a namespace volume, or
you can import one or both of the subdirectories. Do not import
both
C:\home and any of its subdirectories.
For a CIFS subshare with a different Access-Control List (ACL) than its
parent share, you can use a special
CIFS subshare feature on the ARX. You
use this feature to identify any subshares after the parent share is imported,
and share them out to your CIFS clients.