I want my users to see how much space they are using…

You are a busy System Administrator, and would like your users to be able to view their quota status without having to take up your time. From Northern Storage Portal, your users are able to request more storage and view their quota status.

I want my users to actually clean up after themselves…

From user specific web pages, users are shown how much storage they use in the network. Northern Storage Portal gives your users the knowledge and tools they need to delete, move, or archive suitable files.

I'm sure I would win back storage capacity if users could delete all their files that haven't been accessed in the last three years...

Northern Storage Portal helps your users to manage their files. From an intuitive web interface, users are able to view a list of their oldest files, with options to delete, move, or archive these files.

Evaluation Guide for Storage Portal and Quota Server

INTRODUCTION

Since Northern Storage Portal is so intimately integrated with Northern Quota Server 2003 this Evaluation Guide will describe how you can explore some of the many features in both Quota Server 2003 and Storage Portal.

EXPLORING QUOTA SERVER 2003
The objective of any evaluation is to get a fairly decent idea of the key features of the software one is considering to invest in. To that end Northern has devised this paper, which will try to help you in your exploration of the software Quota Server 2003.


Perform a full server installation under the Evaluation license agreement.
After you have completed the installation, choose Start > Programs > NORTHERN > Storage Suite > Quota Server. The Quota Server client appears.
In the Network Pane right-click the machine where you have installed the Quota Server service and select Add Server(s) from the shortcut menu.

STORAGE POLICIES

Quota Server gives you the opportunity to set Storage Policies. These Storage Policies allow you to set quotas on any number of objects, automatically. The Storage Policy Wizards available from the Policies menu in the Quota Server client, make sure that policies are quick to define and easy to deploy. The Storage Policy Wizards also allow you to prohibit certain file types from being saved. Quota Server ensures that, for instance, no Media files [jpg, avi, or mpeg files, etc] are saved. Using the Storage Policy Wizard you can easily deploy network-wide content prohibitions and also set quotas and threshold notifications for any number of folders, shares or users.

The Storage Policy Wizard comes with four pre-configured Storage Policy strategies:

• Set Quotas on User Home shares
Set Quotas on Public shares
• Set Quotas on entire drives
• Set Custom Quotas

IMPLEMENTING STORAGE POLICIES

To implement a Storage Policy:

Choose the Policies menu. Select the desired wizard [The different kinds of policies are described below.]

The Storage Policy Wizard appears.

Follow the on-screen instructions.

SET QUOTAS ON USER HOME SHARES

If you choose the strategy to set Quotas on User Home shares, the wizard will ask you to set quota size, and ask you to navigate to the directory that contains the User’s directories. If you complete the wizard, this policy will proceed to set a quota on every directory added or present in the directory on which the policy has been applied.

SET QUOTAS ON PUBLIC SHARES

If you choose the strategy to set Quotas on Public shares, the wizard will ask you to set quota size, and ask you to navigate to the directory that will act as a public share. If you complete the wizard, this policy will proceed to set a quota on each user that saves a file to the Public share.

SET QUOTAS ON ENTIRE DRIVES

If you choose the option to set Quotas on entire drives, the wizard will ask you to set quota size and scan interval. It is recommended that you set a fairly long interval for this policy. A day [86400 seconds] should suffice. If you complete the wizard, this policy will proceed to set a quota on all selected drives. This is an excellent policy for those admins who want to monitor drives in order to ensure that they are not accidentally filled. Set the policy to send an admin alert at 90 percent full and you know you will be alerted when a drive is near full.

SET CUSTOM QUOTAS

If you choose the strategy to set Custom Quotas, the wizard will ask you to set quota size, and ask you to navigate to any directory that you want to set quotas on.

FILE BLOCKING POLICIES

The File Block Policy Wizards comes with seven pre-configured File Blocking Policy strategies:

• Prohibit movie files from being stored
• Prohibit music files from being stored
• Prohibit picture files from being stored
• Prohibit Internet files from being stored
• Prohibit Office files from being stored
• Prohibit dangerous files types from being stored
• Prohibit Custom file type from being stored

The File Block Policy Wizards helps you set network-wide or server specific bans or prohibitions on certain file types. The prohibitions are aimed at keeping non-business file types off your server, but can also be used to ban any other file types deemed private, recreational or plain unnecessary.

SETTING A FILE BLOCKING POLICY

To set a File Blocking Storage Policy

Choose the Policies menu. Select the desired File Blocking Wizard. The Storage Policy Wizard appears.

Follow the on-screen instructions.
 
INTEGRATING WITH NORTHERN STORAGE PORTAL

To be able to explore the benefits of Northern Storage Portal you must configure Quota Server to interact with Northern Storage Portal.

To integrate Quota Server with Northern Storage Portal:
In the Quota Server client, choose: Tools: Storage Portal Integration Wizard.
 
Complete the wizard following the on-screens instructions.

EXPLORING END-USER PAGES IN STORAGE PORTAL

To explore End-User pages in Storage Portal
From the Northern Storage Portal client, go to the Users page.
Enter a path to a user home directory in the Path text field and type account [DOMAIN\Name] of that user in the Account text field.
Click the Go button. The End-User page appears.

EXPLORING QUOTA SERVER’S CENTRAL DATA STORE (ADVANCED)

To ensure easy and safe backup of Quota Server data you can use the Central Data Store, as a means of replicating and backing up Quota Server’s settings [Quota settings, scheduled Reports, client settings, server settings etc.] These settings are normally kept in the Registry.

When you proceed with the preparations for the Central Database you should provide Quota Server with a database on your SQL server and make other necessary preparations. For details on this refer to the relevant MS SQL documentation of to the Quota Server User Guide.

REPLICATING REGISTRY DATA TO SQL

To replicate Quota Server’s Registry settings to a Central Data Store:
Choose: Tools > Central Data Store Wizard. The Wizard appears.
Follow the instructions of the Wizard.