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To be honest, I was less than enthusiastic when NuView Inc. came to eWEEK Labs Foster City, Calif., facility to pitch its new StorageX product, which is being marketed as a file virtualization solution. If there is any buzzword that has been overused the past year, virtualization is it.
Despite my initial misgivings, however, Im happy to report that NuViews StorageX is a simple yet highly effective storage management tool that should sneak into many networks in the near future.
StorageX, an extension of Microsofts DFS (Distributed File System) protocol, allows IT managers to centralize management of file shares under a single namespace.
Specifically, StorageX adds disaster recovery capabilities and replication to Microsofts DFS, as well as an easy-to-use management interface to configure and manage file shares.
After creating a DFS root using StorageX, we easily added shares from multiple NAS (network-attached storage) and Windows file servers to the root. Instead of mapping to each NAS and file server independently, a client can simply map to the single namespace to gain access to file shares.
Once file shares are added to the root, an IT manager can specify links to access them. IT staff can also create redundant targets on different servers for disaster recovery purposes.
In the event of a failover, clients are seamlessly redirected to mirrors (shares dont have to be remapped to the mirrors).
If this same event were to occur in a non-StorageX environment, an IT manager would have to manually redirect the file share shortcuts on each users desktop (in a small environment) or would have to edit the users log-in scripts and have them again log in to the domain/workgroup.
Watch for the full review of StorageX in the May 20 issue of eWEEK.
Senior Analyst Henry Baltazar can be reached at henry_baltazar@ziffdavis.com.