File System Factory for Active Directory
Demos
The Need for Automated Network User Storage Management
What if you could automate your storage management so that network home folders were created and even provisioned with documents when needed? Moreover, what if home folders could be created, moved, renamed, and deleted according to the role of the user so that specific disk storage and rights were assigned automatically according to associated storage policies?
Instead of dealing with “orphaned home folders” taking up space on your primary storage, what if you could assure that user home folders were being deleted or vaulted to a secondary storage device once a user was deleted from Active Directory?
Introducing File System Factory for Active Directory
File System Factory for Active Directory from Condrey Corporation automates the full lifecycle management of user network storage. Leveraging Microsoft Active Directory, FSF for AD automates a comprehensive set of storage management tasks based on events, identities and event-driven policies that you define. In the process FSF for AD can save you significant time and money.
Identity-driven Policies
Chances are, your organization already has written policies for storage based on user role, rights and properties for home folders, and when to review and delete or vault a user’s home folder after leaving the organization. With FSF for AD policies, these actions are enacted automatically based on events.
For example, when a new user is created in Active Directory, FSF for AD sees the event and looks to a policy to take action. The policy can specify the home folder’s
- Target path location
- Default permissions and home folder properties
- Subfolders and documents to be provisioned by means of templates
- And more
Moving, Role Changes, and Renaming
FSF for AD can even let you set up policies for actions to take when a user changes roles, locations, or names. For example, a movement from one department’s container or group in the Domain to another can generate an event to automatically:
- Move the a user’s home folder and contents to a new specified location
- Ensure that the same file system rights associated with the home folder are moved
- Update the home folder attribute in Active Directory so that the user can access the home folder at the new location
- Remove the home folder from the original location
A rename event in Active Directory can enact a policy to rename the associated user home folder and change the home folder.
Disabling Inactive Users
When dealing with employees who leave an organization, many organizations choose to retain and disable a departing employee’s user object in Active Directory for a specified time, rather than immediately remove it. This practice, however, can result in the home folders of former employees taking up valuable disk space on primary storage devices. With FSF for AD, you can create an Inactive Users policy and associate the policy with an Inactive Users OU or Group in Active Directory. When a disabled user object is moved to the OU or added as a member of the Group covered by the policy, FSF for AD will automatically relocate the user’s data to the secondary storage location and ensure that the former user’s access rights have been revoked.
Deleting Users
It’s all too common for a former employee’s home folder to be taking up valuable storage disk space for months or even years after the employee has left an organization. With FSF for AD, once a user is deleted from Active Directory, you have the option to delete the home folder immediately or defer the action for a set amount of days, or vault it to secondary storage for a set or permanent amount of time.
For example, if employees in an organization work on multiple assignments and store all related files in home folders, the policy can be set so that user folders are not deleted for perhaps 30 days after a user has been removed from Active Directory—which could be sufficient time for the user’s former manager to go through the home folder and reassign files to others. If it is believed that the contents of the home folder won’t be reassigned for weeks or months, the policy can be set to vault the home folder to secondary storage.
Substantial Return on Investment
With event-driven policies continually automating the creation, on-going management, and deletion of user home folders, FSF for AD can save a substantial amount of money over time. Today, the Condrey Corporation technology built into FSF for AD is managing millions of users in hundreds of organizations worldwide, and in the process, saving each organization both money and time over doing these management actions manually.
Microsoft Windows Requirements
The FSF for AD engine can be hosted on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2 or later, or Microsoft Windows 2008 SP1 or later. The management software can be run from a Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 workstation, or Windows server running the .NET Framework 3.5 or later.
