My company is considering an ILM change (implementation, really). Before we do anything or buy anything, is there any freeware available that would report file properties like date of last access, last modified data, etc.? I'm trying to get an overview of what we have before we decide what to do in terms of backup, recovery or data management.
QUESTION POSED ON: 04 APR 2006
QUESTION ANSWERED BY: Brett Cooper
Thank you for the question. You clearly understand the concept of taking inventory (analyzing what you have) before you do any management or movement of information, set goals and work within the organization. This also shows that you may understand that a larger process is needed to truly manage your information.
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any freeware applications that can scan a file system and provide the information that you are looking for. There are some shareware applications that can scan file systems connected to a single host or shared file systems, but they are mainly for single Windows hosts, not for a company with multiple hosts, unless you want to scan servers one at a time and pull the reports together manually. I cannot personally vouch for any of these shareware applications, but doing a quick search on the Web revealed the following shareware products that can provide some of the features that you are looking for: Directory Report, Directory Print and TreeSize Professional.
It sounds like you need a simple SRM-ILM solution that is fairly priced to do a storage assessment. The challenge is that the storage assessment is really just the first part of the process, and the product you will be buying can be used as a measurement tool to see if you were able to meet the goals of the project. I would suggest that you think beyond just the initial assessment and the results to how you will manage new information as it is created.
There is an iterative process at play here that enables an organization to meet the goals of reducing the risk, cost and complexity of enterprise information.
I work for a company, Intermine Inc., that provides one of the leading software solutions for managing files (unstructured information) across all open systems platforms. The team at Intermine documented the iterative process that I discussed above in the following graphic:
© Copyright 2006, Intermine, Inc.
There are other companies that have software solutions in this space, including EMC, CA, Tivoli and others. Many of these companies offer a storage assessment as a service, providing you the information that you are looking for a specified fee. The key is to select a solution that not only meets your budget, but provides the performance, scalability and integration that you require. Integration not only means support of the operating systems and platforms that you have within your organization, but support for the security methodology that your organization has in place.
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