Control User Behaviour

Control your users – control your storage

It’s safe to say that users are the most unpredictable element of any network. In terms of storage use and the types of files they store users adjust their habits to match the capacity available. Without any indication of what reasonable storage use is, users will continue to use storage in the way that suits them and not in the way that suits the organization. In other words; if you don’t control your users you can’t control your storage.

Part of this misuse is caused by a lack of knowledge; user cannot be expected to use storage sensibly if they don't know what sensible storage is. On the other hand, there are always users who will exploit the system. Whatever the cause, excessive storage use is an expensive fact - expensive in terms of hardware and very expensive in terms of hardware management.

Northern Storage Suite shows how your storage is being used; how the usage is spread among the user population and which users stand out as ‘hoarding’ users. Once a reasonable upper limit has been identified, storage quotas can be set and space allocated to each user. Whether you choose to enforce this limit as a hard ceiling or simply use it as a psychological barrier, allocating storage in this way sends a clear message that storage is not free and infinite. As a further step you can prevent specific file types from being saved – controlling content as well as quantity.

ACHIEVING THE GOAL

1. Identify usage patterns
Storage Reporter shows distribution across users or data types, what files a specific user is saving and status at different levels such as host- -and path level. This information can then be used to identify a reasonable and equitable threshold for each user or the whole user population.

2. Define quantity limits
Upper limits can be enforced using Quota Server based on the identified usage patterns. Quotas can be set at user level or group level, directory or object level.

3. Define content limits
Quota Server can also be used to block specific filetypes, or block file type groups.

4. Advanced monitoring
Among the advanced monitoring features that Northern Storage Suite offers you will find multi-host display and management, command-line tools, and the possibility to give users access to managing certain aspects of the quota policy.