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REVIEWSHSM For Windows NT: Seagate's Storage Manager Stands Alone--In The Darkby Jay MilneWhat can two software engineers and one system engineer do in two days? Well, we can tell you what they were unable to do--they couldn't make Storage Manager for Windows NT work in our lab. One of the greatest barriers to the growth of HSM has been the principle of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). After working with this product for several weeks and having two software engineers and a system's engineer on site, we still have some fear of using the product; we are uncertain as to why it did not work; and we have doubts about the product's completeness and stability. For now, NetWare users will be better off staying with a NetWare solution. For NT sites, we suggest patience while Seagate (which purchased Palindrome) resolves some bugs and fills in some missing features. This product is representative of the immature market of NT-based HSM solutions: Seagate was the only vendor to have a general-purpose product shipping at the time of our testing. Not Quite Done Excluding the problems we found, Storage Manager for NT is only about 70 percent complete. One area that we feel is lacking is automatic recall of migrated files by NT network clients. (This includes NT workstations and NT servers.) Lack of this feature forces users or administrators to use a file manager-like program to select which files they wish to have migrated back to the server. Although inconvenient for users, the Seagate File Manager utility is easy to use and is very similar to the NT- or Windows 3.1-style file manager. In addition, only Microsoft NT is supported by the file manager--a major hole in its current product. This means that DOS, Windows 3.x, OS/2, Macintosh and Windows95 users need to have an administrator recall their files--something a LAN administrator should fear. Seagate indicated it was working on Windows 3.x and Windows95 file manager client support. If hands-off operation is what you want, auto recall is supported only for NetWare clients. Storage Manager can back up, archive and migrate files from a NetWare 3.x or 4.x server via several NLMs using either TCP/IP or IPX. Workstations logged into a NetWare server, protected by Storage Manager, have the ability to recall a migrated file automatically without the file manager-like utility. The user simply needs to access the file as he or she would do with an application. The Storage Manager identifies that the file requested has been migrated and will recall the file. Migrated files are replaced by a zero-byte phantom file marker. Unfortunately, we couldn't thoroughly test this feature because of problems we found with the software. Seagate could duplicate these problems but was unable to fix them during our testing. Seagate says a fix for this bug will be in its next release. From the Ashes Some of the more positive features of the Storage Manager for NT include its ability to provide backup, archiving and HSM facilities to NetWare 3.x or 4.x, NT Server and Workstation. This makes it a good fit for a multi-NOS environment. Much of the fear and uncertainty about HSM is a result of weak integration between HSM and backup features. Seagate's Storage Manager provides a very tightly integrated data management system that provides not only for the migration of files but for backup and archiving as well. What makes this attractive is that all three functions are found in one application--not three separate modules packaged together. For the enterprise, supporting a distrib uted backup/HSM system can be accomplished through installations of Storage Manager at distributed sites. For this type of environment, Seagate has created an application called Vista Storage Administrator. Vista allows for the management of remote NT installations from a central console, which only runs on NT. In addition, Storage Manager can route messages to an SNMP trap, a Windows broadcast message or via MAPI to an e-mail address. No provisions exist at this time for paging. Probably the biggest surprise is the asking price for the software. For $3,600, your entire enterprise is covered--that's unlimited servers, including unlimited installations. Compare that with some Unix-based solutions that start at $20,000. While the pricing is almost like giving it away, we don't see any value in spending the money on a product that did not work completely--especially if that product is handling your critical data. Once this product becomes stable and a bit more mature, it will be a great value. Doing the HSM Thing Most administrators will want to modify some of the rules used by the H SM service in order to determine which files are eligible for migration. A very positive attribute is that rules for file migration eligibility can flow down the directory tree (this can be disabled when setting rules). Additionally, Storage Manager's File Manager utility indicates the current state of all the rules for each particular directory and its files. Once file rules have been set, both high thresholds and low thresholds can be predetermined based on disk capacity. For example, an administrator could configure Storage Manager to start migrating files when the server disk is 90 percent full. Once migration starts, you can select which files will be migrated first. You have the option of selecting largest file size, the least recently used file or the most eligible file. What's Coming Up The next release of Storage Manager promises much-needed support for optical storage a nd agents for Oracle and Microsoft databases, as well as the Microsoft Exchange Server. Don't look f or a Lotus Notes agent--it isn't planned yet. We look forward to the solutions to the bugs found during our testing, which are expected to be incorporated in the next revision. Jay Milne can be reached on the Internet at jmilne@nwc.com. What About The Rest Of The Crowd?We were very surprised to find that Seagate was the only general-purpose HSM product for NT on the market. Neither Cheyenne or Legato are shipping products, but according to both companies, they are in the works. For those needing an imaging HSM-only solution, Watermark Software has an Enterprise Image Server software with an optional HSM module. This software is not a general-purpose HSM product like Seagate's Storage Manager, nor does it include a general-purpose backup or archiving facility. Watermark even recommends using a third-party backup program to back up the entire system. Watermark uses NT as its server platform and Microsoft's SQL Server (4.21a and above) as its database engine. Enterprise Image Server, along with the Enterprise Edition client software, is much more than an HSM product. It is an image management system that uses HSM technology to help provide efficient storage of image documents. This allows old images to be placed on optical storage for archiving and storage. Users employ the Watermark Enterprise client software to manage and create documents. These Watermark documents can then be sent around to other Watermark users, who then manage and annotate documents. It supports Windows OLE, which allows for editing of embedded Watermark documents in other Windows applications. April 15, 1996 |
