Win2000:
Remote Storage Services
Once enabled, Remote
Storage makes it possible to
F
rom servers to desktops to notebooks, hard disk storage has never been so vast
or affordable. Be that as it may, storing the entire data content of a medium
sized to large company on fixed hard drives is still far from cheap. One way
to reduce the total cost of ownership is to store seldom used data to another medium,
migrate files from relatively
such as tape. Tape has always been a popular media for backups, and in terms of
expensive online storage to
cost per megabyte it is likely to remain so for some time to come. Hence, companies
that regularly save vast amounts of information can use tape to reduce the total cost
cheaper offline media, such as
of ownership. This is typically achieved with the help of a Hierarchical Storage
Management (HSM) system. HSM solutions are designed to reduce storage and
standalone tape drives or
administration costs, while keeping less frequently used data available on backup
automated tape libraries.
storage media. Typically, an HSM system can free up valuable hard disk space by
moving data that has not been accessed within a user specified time period to a
slower but less costly storage device.
By Dave Cook
IT Journalist
Advances
At first glance, HSM might seem like overkill for many small to medium sized
enterprises; however, recent advances in robotics has brought automated tape
libraries to within easy reach of the average IT department. Microsoft recognised
this fact, and tasked HighGround Technologies (
www.highground.com
) with pro
ducing an HSM product for Windows 2000. The result is Remote Storage Services
(RSS), so called because it contains a combination of four services that collectively
provide HSM support. It should be pointed out, however, that RSS only comes as
standard with server versions of Windows 2000. Users of Windows 2000 Profes
sional can make use of it as clients only. It is also worth noting that, unlike some
proprietary HSM systems, RSS storage is limited to just two defined levels. The
upper level, called local storage, includes the NTFS 5.0 disk volumes of the computer
running Remote Storage on Windows 2000 Server. The lower level, known as
secondary storage, is on the robotic tape library or standalone tape drive.
In the case of end users (depending on the speed of the tape unit and the number
of files involved) deploying RSS often makes little apparent difference, with only
the more observant users noticing that icons of offline files are marked in Explorer
with a small clock in the bottom left corner.
Four RSS Services
The four Remote Storage Services consist of:
G
The Remote Storage Engine which helps to coordinate the services and provides
the interface for the admin console, Rsadmin.exe.
G
The Remote Storage File System Agent which filters files for the Remote Storage
system.
G
The Remote Storage Subsystem which manages the media required for RSS.
G
The Remote Storage User Link which acts as a client interface.
RSS should not be confused with another Windows 2000 feature, the Removable
Storage Management (RSM) service. Typically, RSM is used by the system to initiate
media cleaning cycles, and control and maintain media libraries such as tape
libraries and CD ROM jukeboxes, for example. Remote Storage also takes advan
Figure 1 Click the checkbox to
tage of RSM to shuffle media into and out of its tape library and to call up new media
install Remote Storage Services.
from the offline pool.
Issue 132:July 2001
PC Network Advisor
File: T1726.1
page 7
Tutorial:Windows
www.pcnetworkadvisor.com
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