VFM® 5.8.3 Software—Description

VFM is a file-virtualization solution for managing distributed storage environments. VFM enables storage administrators to create a single view of a heterogeneous enterprise file system that might consist of NetApp® storage systems, Windows® servers, and UNIX® servers. Using VFM, you can carry out management operations on large amounts of data without disrupting client access. VFM is installed on a Windows server and requires no agents to be installed on Windows or UNIX clients.

VFM provides the following benefits:

• Eliminates any need for client reconfiguration if data is moved to a new location
• Reduces downtime in case of a disaster
• Provides file-level heterogeneous replication and migration for NetApp storage system, Windows, and UNIX data
• Operates in heterogeneous, multi-vendor, multi-architecture environments
• Lowers the cost of storage management and decreases the total cost of ownership

Changes implemented in VFM 5.8.3 are the elimination of limitations encountered when upgrading from earlier versions of VFM to VFM 5.8 or later.

Changes implemented in VFM 5.8.2 and included in VFM 5.8.3, include the following resolutions to known operating issues:

• The multiprotocol namespace policy was updated to accommodate NFS exports whose names contain spaces. Note that patches to Red Hat® automounter are required in order for it to successfully mount exports whose names contain spaces.
• The namespace creation policy Target Search Ignore List can now be edited to include subfolders in the VFM UI.
• Replication problems involving configurations with short, non-ASCII-named files have been corrected.
• Files are no longer deleted during a sync operation in cases where the StorageX service account is incorrectly configured and lacks administrator privileges on a destination NetApp storage system.
• The namespace availability policy has been revised to work more reliably when writing widelink namespaces on NetApp storage systems.
  

Features implemented in VFM 5.8 and later include the following:

• VFM Enterprise Edition or VFM Migration Edition

You can purchase a license for either the full-featured VFM Enterprise Edition (VFM-EE) product or the VFM Migration Edition (VFM-ME) product. The VFM-ME product might be appropriate if you want to purchase the VFM product only as a tool for data migration.

• More flexible namespace creation policies

You can populate your namespace with links that target shares that are subdirectories of shares. When searching for shares that match a string and folders within shares that match a path you specify, you can optionally select to create links that directly target shared subdirectories. The Namespace Creation wizard also enables you to create a customized template that you can use to arrange search results in the namespace.

• Report enhancements

The Replication Status Report shows additional information about a replication task:

Files in Sync—The number of files that were not transferred because the source and destination were identical.

Bytes in Sync—The number of bytes contained in synchronized files.

Files Copied—The number of files copied to the destination.

Bytes Copied—The number of bytes copied to the destination.

Files Failed—The number of files that were not copied to the destination because of an error. This information also appears in the Replication Tasks view for a replication policy.

• Replication performance

Faster data transfer is provided with VFM 5.8 and later.

• Improved scalability and responsiveness in large configurations

Before installing VFM, check that the systems on which the VFM components are installed meet the following requirements:

• Microsoft® Windows® 2000 SP 2 or later or Windows XP Professional to manage roots on Windows NT® 4 or Windows 2000 servers
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Windows Server™ 2003 to manage multiple roots on a single Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE) Service Pack 3 or later or SQL Server 2000. VFM installs and uses Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine as part of the VFM server or VFM monitoring agent.
• Standard or Enterprise Edition Service Pack 3 or later to install the VFM database and monitoring agents you install
• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1. VFM installs the Microsoft .NET Framework if it is not already on the system.
• Internet Explorer™ 5.5 or later
• Windows Script Host 5.6 or later
• Disk space:
  • The VFM self-extracting file needs 175 MB.
  • Typical installation (client and server are installed on the same machine) when you are using an existing SQL instance—175 MB
  • Client only installation—130 MB
  • Server only installation when you are using an existing SQL instance—160 MB
  • Monitor only installation—160 MB
    
• VFM components must be installed on local fixed NTFS disks.
• Minimum video display of 1,024 by 768 and 256 colors. For the best display, it is strongly recommended that you use more than 256 colors.
• It is strongly recommended that you use the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to connect to remote machines because other products providing remote desktop access, such as VNC, have exhibited screen rendering problems when used with VFM.
  
• The evaluation license of VFM places a 60-minute limit on the amount of data you can transfer. This limit is for each run of a policy.
  

To view the user guides for VFM, click here. After installing VFM, see the Readme file, readme.chm, in the installation directory for additional technical information.

After you confirm that your servers and storage systems meet the requirements, proceed with the download by clicking CONTINUE.