File Services - what are you using? New ideas?
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From: Silvester on 4 Jun 2010 10:49 Hi all, We are currently running a Win2k3 server running our DNS, AD, DHCP and Fileservices. Our CTO does not like the way our file system is setup and is looking for new solutions. SOme of his issues are Security, Difficulty finding documents - including those of employees that have left where you can't ask the person where they put something, along with some structural issues as in seeing folders staff doesn't have access to. Some solutions that came to mind were using an encryption software such as PGP for certain folders such as the Management etc. For search problems, someone has suggested getting a Search Engine and putting it on top of the filesystem, one that will search at the document content level. THe filesystem structure in my opinion can be solved easily by not sharing at the rood folder level and sharing at the department level (account has access to and sees only those folders etc), right now it's shared at an upper level and all different departments are visible but access denied to some. There is also talks of putting everything into a Sharepoint type system. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm also looking into getting a shared storage device, san or nas not sure yet and virtualizing the dhcp/dns/fileserver. -- Silvester ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Silvester's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/214276.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-server-help/1343637.htm http://forums.techarena.in
From: JohnB on 4 Jun 2010 12:13 "Silvester" <Silvester.4c1e9b(a)DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message news:Silvester.4c1e9b(a)DoNotSpam.com... > > Hi all, > > We are currently running a Win2k3 server running our DNS, AD, DHCP and > Fileservices. Our CTO does not like the way our file system is setup > and is looking for new solutions. SOme of his issues are Security, > Difficulty finding documents - including those of employees that have > left where you can't ask the person where they put something. This is a procedural issue. Not a file system issue. Of course you can't ask a terminated employee where their files were. We have a documented check-list, for what to do when an employee is terminated. And in that list, among other things... is instructions on how to handle the former employees data. We first give their manager access to the folder where it is currently located. And any other employees that the manager wants to have access to the folder. The manager knows (because it's company policy) that the folder will be moved after 30 days, and that they are to "move" any files that they want to keep, to their own folder before the 30 days is up. Then the folder is moved to a "Gone" folder. It's left there for 1 year, and then deleted.
From: Grant Taylor on 4 Jun 2010 12:15 On 06/04/10 09:49, Silvester wrote: > Some solutions that came to mind were using an encryption software > such as PGP for certain folders such as the Management etc. Can I ask why you are considering encryption? Is it just to prevent access to the document like you could with file system security / ACLs? > For search problems, someone has suggested getting a Search Engine > and putting it on top of the filesystem, one that will search at the > document content level. I believe that Microsoft has a number of different technologies that fall in to this category, many of which should integrate with your current environment. I'd at least evaluate (to see if it will do what you want) what Microsoft has to offer before looking at 3rd party vendors. > THe filesystem structure in my opinion can be solved easily by not > sharing at the rood folder level and sharing at the department level > (account has access to and sees only those folders etc), right now > it's shared at an upper level and all different departments are > visible but access denied to some. I consider what you are proposing to be best practice for the complaints that you are saying. > There is also talks of putting everything into a Sharepoint type > system. I don't know enough about SharePoint to comment other than I think that unless you really need it, that is a lot of over head just for searching documents. > Do you guys have any suggestions? I'd start by looking at the search features built in and / or add-ons from Microsoft. > I'm also looking into getting a shared storage device, san or nas not > sure yet and virtualizing the dhcp/dns/fileserver. Remember that your file server(s) really is (are) a NAS. So a NAS device is going to be very similar to your current file server(s). SANs on the other hand are quite different. Remember that NAS is for many people to connect to a share (ala file server) where as a SAN is for one (cluster of) server(s) to access a drive. Usually, you have a server (NAS) front ending to a SAN. Virtualization is an interesting critter that can be both good and bad. It is in some ways independent of your other concerns. Grant. . . .
From: Grant Taylor on 4 Jun 2010 12:36 On 06/04/10 11:13, JohnB wrote: > We have a documented check-list, for what to do when an employee is > terminated. And in that list, among other things... is instructions > on how to handle the former employees data. We first give their > manager access to the folder where it is currently located. And any > other employees that the manager wants to have access to the folder. > The manager knows (because it's company policy) that the folder will > be moved after 30 days, and that they are to "move" any files that > they want to keep, to their own folder before the 30 days is up. > Then the folder is moved to a "Gone" folder. It's left there for 1 > year, and then deleted. That sounds like a good policy. I might extend the 30 days to 60 or 90 based on how slow some of my customers are. But aside from how long the folder is there, I like it. Grant. . . .
From: Silvester on 4 Jun 2010 12:56
excellent input. I am doing some research now on using Windows Search and indexing the mapped drives for the search capabilities. I also like the policy, but I think we all know it's rather difficult to get Managers to actually go through past employees documents and it will be up to IT to retrieve them from that "gone" folder after either way. As for the NAS/SAN, we have some experts here that can give me advice on which route to go. I want to turn this fileserver into an ESX server to cluster with our other ESX which is why i'm looking into shared storage and virtualizing the server. -- Silvester ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Silvester's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/214276.htm View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-server-help/1343637.htm http://forums.techarena.in |