WHITE PAPER Windows Quota Management and File Blocking Best Practices CONTROLING SHARED WINDOWS STORAGE Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003 Direct Access Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS), and SAN. 1
INTRODUCTION Windows Quota Management and File Screening Best Practices provide guidelines and methodology for creating corporate policies control shared Windows storage - reducing offensive materials risks, reducing the risk of viruses, reducing the overall cost of storage, and improving backup. This document summarizes some of the Best Practices for quickly implementing best practice policies with VERITAS StorageCentral. These B est Practices were developed based on years of experience of implementing StorageCentral in hundreds of corporations. PASSIVE POLICIES Passive policies allow customers to ease into quota and file blocking policies by informing and politely asking users to adhere to policies. With StorageCentral, customers have the choice between implementing policies that are active or passive. Both active and passive quota policies have 5 levels of alerts, each with a variety of methods for informing users that they are approaching the maximum amount of storage allowed. Active policies prevent users from storing more than the maximum allowed amount of storage or saving identified file types. Passive policies provide notification and monitoring when storage policies are vi olated. Active policies add enforcement, preventing users from storing more than the maximum allowed amount of storage or saving identified file types. For example, a passive policy may stipulate that each user home directory should hold no more than 100MB of files. By implementing a passive 100MB limit, customers can quickly and non-intrusively determine what users have more than 100MB of data in their home directories. Exceptions can be made if required, and space allocation enforcement (changing the policy to active) can be turned on after all users are in compliance and any exceptions have been implemented. Quota policies can be active or passive and can be dynamically changed from one to the other as part of an implementation strategy that gradually moves users to active quotas and file blocking. 2
UTILIZE AUTO DETECTION POLICIES Subfolder and User policies can automatically detect (discover) users, making it easy to manage large dynamic environments. Policies can specify absolute or relative values for maximum allowed storage. Relative values such as percent of currently used, percent of space limit, percent of device, and device capacity allow for defining generic policies that apply to multiple systems and multiple users. These policies can automatically detect member users and systems and manage storage allocations appropriately. Auto detect policies reduce the total cost of ownership and contribute to zero administration initiatives. When creating a new managed object, customers have options for associating polices to managed objects. Automatically detecting users that have subfolders in a share provides for consistent policies with zero administration 3
Automatically detecting users can be set in user policies where users are sharing a system or a folder without their own associated subfolder. DISK FULL ERROR CODE When enforcing policies, chose to send disk full error codes with enforcement. StorageCentral integrates with Windows operating systems to return valid, supported error messages back to a user or application when quotas and file blocking are enforced. Many Microsoft applications and non-windows 2000 operating systems do not properly handle or translate the Out of Space Allocation error message. Disk Full is universally understood and properly handled by applications and operating systems including Macintosh. PROTECT USERS FROM UNEXPECTEDLY RUNNING OUT OF SPACE When enforcing quota polices, provide an appropriate overdraft and utilize the Always save open files option. An overdraft allows the user to exceed the specified space allocation by the specified overdraft value. The Always save open files option allows quotas to be exceeded by the size of the last I/O. The Always save open files option lets users save work in progress when at the limit of the quota. This reduces calls to the help desk by frustrated users and enables users to continue to work naturally while enforcing quota policies. 4
MONITOR OVERALL DISK CONSUMPTION StorageCentral provides detailed disk consumption information in a very easy to understand format. This helps administrators better manage shared Windows storage and prevent untimely outages due to out-of-space conditions. Multiple thresholds provide appropriate notification to DBAs and System Administrators as critical applications or database resources approach maximum capacity. StorageCentral comes with the predefined policies for monitoring disk consumption. When applied to a partition, the Partition Alert policy calculates the size of the partition and set the space allocation value to that amount. Multiple thresholds can be customized to inform DBAs and System Administrators as critical applications approach maximum capacities. Partition policies warn DBAs and System Administrators as critical application servers, database servers, and file servers approach maximum capacity, eliminating outages due to out-of-space conditions. 5
DEPLOY USER REPORTS User can receive reports via email from StorageCentral as their storage allocation approaches maximum capacity as specified in a quota policy. When a user s space allocation reaches critical levels based on the quota policies, the user should be notified via a customizable Windows pop-up message and sent detailed reports to help recover critical storage space. StorageCentral active HTML reports enable actions against files listed in a report. Files can be opened, copied, moved or deleted directly from the browser. With real-time notification and active HTML reports Windows administrators delegate file management back to the users who own the data. Any allocation policy can be used to increase user awareness of storage habits. Use the Reports Tab after clicking on the Actions button to send active HTML reports to end users when they reach a defined threshold and before they reach the maximum amount of storage allowed by the policy. 6
DEPLOY ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS These reports run against larger objects such as servers, partitions, or large shared areas. The reports should be run on a scheduled basis and can be customized to meet specific requirements. Additionally, custom reports can be created with the StorageCentral custom report writer. Reports can be mailed to specified administrators, or posted to Intranet Web pages. 7
SUMMARY Customers gain control of dynamic storage environments quickly and easily - changing the way storage is used and managed. These best practices result in Lower total cost of storage ownership Increased service levels Reduced risk of viruses Reduced risk of violating emerging piracy laws Please see http://www.veritas.com/products/category/productdetail.jhtml?productid=storagecentralsrm for more information on VERITAS StorageCentral, or call 800-327-2232. 8
VERITAS Software Corporation Corporate Headquarters 350 Ellis Street Mountain View, CA 94043 800-327-2232 For additional information about VERITAS Software, its products, or the location of an office near you, please call our corporate headquarters or visit our Web site at www.veritas.com. 9