The Sharpeware Blog

Category Coming Soon
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Secure Shell (SSH) is an Internet protocol that lets you establish an encrypted data stream (including encrypted login) for a number of program types that are normally unencrypted ("cleartext").  This means that, using SSH, the forthcoming SPACEWatch v5.7.71 build can securely login to your remote UNIX or linux server and retrieve storage data in a secure manner.

SSH offers two popular login methods, both of which are supported by SPACEWatch:

• Username/password is the easiest to use; as the name implies, you just log in normally, with your regular UNIX or linux username and password. But since the link is encrypted, your password stays a secret.
• Public/private-key authentication is more secure, because your password is never sent over the link at all. (What's sent is an encrypted token using your private key, instead.) To use this method, you have to create two files:

1. a public key to save on your UNIX or linux system, and
2. a private key to keep on the computer that SPACEWatch is installed on (or accessible to it, e.g. on a file server).


SSH configuration options in the SPACEWatch v5.7.71

You don't need any additional software to use this new feature - just add your UNIX and linux hosts as scheduled tasks or directly through the SPACEWatch client interface and get going.  All your familiar analyses and reports will work just they way you expect.

Note that there are some quirks however - but these are to do with how UNIX works, rather than any limitation in SPACEWatch.  For example UNIX systems don't generally store a file creation date.  Instead they have two last modified dates (one for data and one for file properties).

Posted by Andrew Sharpe At 19:48:13 Location Peebles, Scotland | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Coming Soon Web Tools
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What device do these screenshots come from?

     

If you guessed a Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone then well done. If you guessed the model of phone then you know far too much about the latest hot tech toys (its an HTC TyTN II by the way).  If you got one for Christmas then welcome to my geek club!  

They’re great as a business tool – and you will soon be able to use this (or any other mobile device that has a pocket browser built in) for storage management via your SPACEWatch Storage Suite.  

For example, do you notice the red bar in the first screenshot above?  That’s a volume that is running low on available space.  You can then immediately use the tree summary shown in the second screenshot to see where all the storage is being used.

So how do I get a storage summary from my SPACEWatch space database displayed on my smartphone?  The answer is by using the web interface that will be available in a forthcoming update.  You can use it from a normal browser – or a pocket browser on your smartphone as in the example above.  SPACEWatch will automatically adjust its display to suite your browser.

As you can see, we have a working solution in development.  It won’t be long before customers with maintenance contracts can get a free update that includes these new features.

With the new web interface you can take a look at a range of SPACEWatch space data – and manage your storage wherever you are.  The above example shows available and used disk storage on your servers and volumes in a handy bar chart.  But you can delve much deeper.

   

As with the desktop SPACEWatch client, you can drill down to file level detail.  For example, the first  screenshot above shows another smartphone storage summary – this time top file types.  On this page I can click on any file type link and I’ll see all those files listed… then I can pick one and another click later I can see all the file detail – as shown in the second screenshot above.

You will even be able to carry out searches of your space data remotely and monitor the progress of your space database scan and merge jobs.

So if you’ve ever wanted to take SPACEWatch with you when you’re away from your desk – now you can.  With the SPACEWatch  web interface.

Posted by Andrew Sharpe At 17:51:53 Location Peebles, Scotland | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category SPACEWatch New Releases
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We don’t always describe new updates to SPACEWatch in the blog, but v5.7.70 includes some new features that are definitely worth taking the time to explain in more detail.

This update brings some new features and fixes to SPACEWatch Enterprise, SPACEWatch for Exchange and SPACEWatch for Domino.  Read about all the changes.  If you have an up-to-date maintenance contract you can download this update via My Account – if you don’t know how to log in then contact support@sharpeware.com.

Here are a couple of the major new areas of enhancement in this update:

Enhancements to space database maintenance

We've included a number of enhancements to help with automating the maintenance of your SQL space databases.  These include:

• If this is your first data collection to a new SQL database, the structure will now be automatically created for you
• If you collect data remotely, e.g. to a local SPACEWatch data file, you can now automate the merging of these data files into your SQL space database
• We've slightly updated the SQL databases structure in a way that lets us optimize data maintenance - in some cases this will result in an up to 50% performance improvement
• If you really want to, you can now zap the SQL space database before starting a new collection - this will erase all space data (and can't be undone - so please use with care!)
• You can now verify your space database as a routine task - although we recommend only doing this when required (e.g. when data collection was interrupted due to a system or network failure).  This option attempts to validate the data that is already in the database.

The new User Finder

The most significant new feature in this update is the new User Finder. You’ll find this on the new Find – Users menu option.  We previewed this in an earlier blog (see 'Who's used all the space?').  This deceptively simple tool is actually very powerful.

With this new tool can you instantly see the results of analyses like

• top 50 users who have created audio files (where 'audio files' are any file types that fit this description)
• users with files unused for more than 6 months

or even

• top users with unused audio files.

What's more you can see the results rolled up by organization structure as well, using your directory details taken from either Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory or IBM Domino Directory depending on where the files are being stored.

Here’s an example:


Who’s taking up most storage with their audio files?

By the way, what you class as ‘audio files’ can be defined by you: we give you a range of file types to get you started, but you can alter these any way you want – or even create your own set of file types.  We call these sets of file types ‘highlight groups’ and you can manage them from the File Types summary window.  

Go to Data – Summary and click on the Types tab.  Use the Settings button to manage your Highlight Groups.

And here are the same results organized as a tree:


User Finder results organized along directory lines

The User Finder shows you how many files – and how much storage they’re taking up – for each user.  Along side this data it also shows you the total files/storage all files owned by that user.

As with any other area of SPACEWatch you can see detail by double clicking a result – in this case you will see all the files listed.  You can also save the results to a variety of formats and use them in other applications, or print a formatted report.

Finally, you can also visualize your results in a chart like this:


Visualize results in a chart

Posted by Andrew Sharpe At 22:05:53 Location Peebles, Scotland | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Notes and Domino
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SPACEWatch for Domino extends storage management into IBM Lotus Notes and Domino infrastructures.  It lets you see detail down to individual file attachments on how Lotus databases are being used.  If you want to analyze this detail in SPACEWatch, here's a short guide to interpreting the results you see.

What is a Notes database?

Notes databases are unique in design; they are document-centric and cannot be clearly classified as either relational or object in architecture.  They exist as one or more replicas (typically only one per Domino server) and these replicas look like plain file-system files of type "nsf" (which stands for Notes Storage Facility).

Within each NSF file there are a range of objects as illustrated below:


A Notes database file contains a variety of data

A "blank" Lotus Notes 8 mail file, for example, is bigger than 20 MB!  This is because it contains all the mail application objects, security controls etc. for the mail file to function as a Notes mail application.  Once a user starts to use the database, most space is rapidly taken up by file attachments.

How does SPACEWatch for Domino display Notes databases?

SPACEWatch for Domino allows you to search and analyze Notes databases down to individual file attachments, whether the NSF file is located on a Domino server or locally (e.g. as an archive file).  Optionally you can also include details of messages that users have created.

Logically a Notes database is like a folder – just like a folder it contains various types of files.  And so this is how it is displayed in SPACEWatch.  For example in the Directory Finder you will see a mail file appearing like this:



How a Notes database appears in SPACEWatch's Directory Finder

Note how:

·        The folder name = the NSF database file path and name
·        “Size” is the total space taken up by all file attachments and messages in this database
·        “Size on disk” is the total storage the NSF file is consuming
·        “Files” is the total number of file attachments in the database
·        “Messages” is the total number of user-created documents (emails) in the database
·        “Owner” is the Lotus Notes owner of the database

If you compare this to the view of the NSF file from Windows Explorer:


A Notes database in Windows Explorer

You can see a single nsf file with the same size as shown by SPACEWatch’s “Size on disk” value.  In this example the Domino server is running in on Windows, but SPACEWatch shows the correct “Size on disk” for any server type supported by Domino.

By the way, this “Size on disk” is also the size you see displayed when you look at a Notes database’s properties in a Notes client:


The Notes client “Disk space” is the same as SPACEWatch’s “Size on disk”

If you divide the earlier 688,128 KB size by 1024 you get the 672 MB shown in the Notes client.  Note how the “Documents” total is the same as the “messages” total reported by SPACEWatch.

Where else can you see Notes databases in SPACEWatch?

As well as the Directory Finder you will see Notes databases displayed in various parts of SPACEWatch for Domino.  These include the Tree Summary; Quick Answers; and various Reports.  In all these “Size” and “Size on disk” can be interpreted in just the same way as I describe above.

Posted by Andrew Sharpe At 12:29:54 Location Peebles, Scotland | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Category SPACEWatch New Releases
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Watch out for the forthcoming release of SPACEWatch v5.7.70.  For Enterprise, Domino and Exchange Edition users you get an all new tool to help with finding who is using all the space.



The all new User Finder

The User Finder continues the tradition of the existing File and Folder Finders in giving you a powerful - but easy to use - way to find out about how your space is being used.  In this case how file owners are consuming space.

Want to find out the top 50 owners of Audio Files that have not been used for more than 6 months?  Just set your criteria and click on search.  Within seconds you will see the results you want.

We will even given you three different ways of looking at your results so you can find what you want quickly:


Results as a simple list


Results in a Directory-formatted tree


Results in a chart

Notice those two sets of columns for results e.g. "Files" and "Total Files"?  Because I limited the search to "Audio Files" this is telling me how many audio files are owned by this user, alongside the total number of files that owner has created.

What are "Audio Files"?

We introduced the concept of "highlight groups" a while back as a handy way of grouping together related types of files.  You can see them in the Types Summary today.  You can create your own or change the ones we supply with SPACEWatch.  We've extended the use of the highlight groups into the User Finder - so you can now use your own (or the in-built) sets of different file types as criteria to search on.

For example you might have a group called "Unwanted Files" and then generate reports of the top users who created files of these types in the last month - just choose this group in the User Finder "File Types" list, set the Date criteria to "created in the last 1 month" and click on "Search" --- and you're done!



Just like the other Finders, we will also give you some one-click quick analyses.  For example, click on "Most Active" to see which users have been updating files the most in the last month.

See the detail

And again, just like the Folder Finder, if you want to see all the files that make up a particular result in the User Finder - just double click.  In the example above, double clicking a result would immediately list all unused audio files owned by the selected user - wherever they are currently located.

So watch out for the release of SPACEWatch Storage Suite v5.7.70 and get started with the all new User Finder!

Posted by Andrew Sharpe At 20:30:17 Location Peebles, Scotland | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)