3
Overview
File System Factory™ is an event-driven file system management solution for eDirectory
and NetWare. Ultimately, it creates, manages, and deletes disk storage based on events in
the Directory. It is designed to provide these services for user home directories (personal
storage) as well as shared disk space (group storage).
These actions are performed based on File System Factory™ management Policies that
are defined and associated with containers in the tree. Policy definitions allow separate
management methods for storage for users and groups in the same part of the tree. A
single Policy may be assigned to multiple objects in the tree for unified management. A
policy may be assigned to a container, a group, or directly to an individual user object.
Standard inheritance determines which policy, if any, is applied for a given object.
File System Factory™ contains selectable algorithms for load-balancing storage across
multiple servers and volumes. These may be traditional NetWare volumes, volumes based
on Novell Storage Services (NSS), or volumes backed by Novell Cluster Services.
When an event occurs in the tree, the event-monitoring component of File System
Factory™ immediately intercepts the event. Because File System Factory™ contains a
Global Event Subsystem; multiple instances of the event monitor can be run
simultaneously on multiple servers without concern for replica location collisions and
duplicate event processing.
The intercepted Directory events are sent to a server running the File System Factory™
action engine component. If the engine determines that a Policy has been associated
directly or indirectly with the object being created, modified, or deleted; the engine then
applies the Policy.
Policies contain provisions for having File System Factory™ not only create the file
systems, but also apply quotas, set trustee assignments, and copy a given template
directory containing files and subdirectories with trustees. Directory cleanup can be
managed such that file system deletions may occur immediately after object deletion or be
deferred for a specified amount of time.
File System templates may be applied to users or groups or both users and groups. File
System Factory™ can copy in a specified template directory from anywhere on the
network for each user or group home directory created. Files and directories may be
copied as well as trustee assignments and attributes.
The engine contains an internal transactional state machine architecture that allows the
engine to deal with transient waits with eDirectory synchronization issues. The state
machine architecture also allows 100% recovery from any failure involving network
communications, a target server or a server running a component of File System
Factory™ (including the engine itself).
File System Factory™ will work with any version of NDS or eDirectory. Components
will run on any 5.x or 6.x NetWare server. File systems can be created and managed on
any supported version of NetWare that works with NDS or eDirectory (4.x, 5.x, 6.x).
Novell File System Factory™ Administrator’s Guide
© 2002-2005 Condrey Consulting Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
8