efficiently manage disk space on the server - welcome to jam software

Useful disk space is often occupied by large, temporary or duplicate files and therefore inefficiently used. Through additional hardware, the space can be enlarged. However, this investment is not always necessary. It is worth analy-zing if the existing server capacity is being efficiently used.

The photovoltaics company SCHOTT Solar utilizes SpaceObServer, a JAM Soft-ware developed disk space manager, for server observation and localization of redundant files. SCHOTT could clearly reduce its disk space usage as the servers are used more efficiently. Furthermore, the employees, who mainly produce the allocation of disk space, are now able to optimize it on their own. They regularly and automatically receive individualized reports and can independently manage their disk space.

SCHOTT Solar is one of the world’s leading solar engineering corporations with 2,300 employees; 1,300 of them are in four German branches. These employees produce a considerable amount of data that is monitored by the IT administration. “As our servers were constantly at their limits, we needed to find an appropriate solution”, explains Christian Erwin, IMS (Infrastructure Management Services) Lead at SCHOTT Solar. “Expanding the disk space by additional hardware is, today, no longer a tech-nical problem. Nevertheless, in addition to the purchasing costs, it also brings along costs of further use that are hard to calculate in advance. For this reason we checked if our existing disk space was being efficiently and thereby cost-effectively used.”

Database Based Solution

Erwin had already examined different software solutions for analysis and control of the disk space capacity, amongst others the disk space manager TreeSize Professional from JAM Software that had already convinced him as a management tool. For the complex IT infrastructure at SCHOTT Solar it was important to have automated ser-ver monitoring and flawless archiving of the directory information. Therefore, Erwin decided to employ the database based solution SpaceObServer from JAM Software which additionally offers a broad range of functions.

Case Study SCHOTT Solar

Photovoltaics Corporation Utilizes SpaceObServer from JAM Software

Efficiently Manage Disk Space on the Server

www.jam-software.com/spaceobserverJAM Software GmbH · Max-Planck-Str. 22 · 54296 Trier · Germany · Tel. +49-651-145653-0 · [email protected]

January 2011

Challenge

Server disk space full

Continuous analysis and control desired

Integrate employees

Solution

SCHOTT Solar uses SpaceObServer from JAM Software

Customer Profile

The SCHOTT Solar AG is a subsidia-ry of the SCHOTT Group and one of the world’s leading solar engineering companies. The international SCHOTT technology group generated 2.85 Bil-lion Euro in world sales, with 77% out-side of Germany and a total of 17,500 employees (status: financial year 2009/2010). SCHOTT Solar has 2,300 employees worldwide with 1,300 of them in four German branches.www.schottsolar.com

http://www.jam-software.com/spaceobserver

http://www.schottsolar.com

“With regular scans of complex systems, a database based solution allows you to archive the sizes of the file systems and to have instant access to these files”, says Joachim Marder, Managing Director of JAM Software. “SpaceObServer saves direc-tory information in a database. An independent system service continuously and automatically examines local directories as well as network drives in the background.”

The solution SpaceObServer stores information about the structure, size and pro-perties of the drives and features flexible automation functions, such as an interface for automatically generated reporting. The reports are sent to the individual emplo-yees of SCHOTT Solar in the form of an HTML-Mail and are specially customized for each user. Thus, the tool ensures that every employee has an overview of his or her own disk space allocation.

The administrative effort is reduced to a minimum. “SpaceObServer exactly meets our requirements” says Erwin. “Nonetheless, it was also important to us that we choose a trustworthy supplier. The product and service quality we received from JAM Software because of TreeSize Professional had already convinced us, so the decision for SpaceObServer was easy. The installation and configuration was simplified by the intuitive user interface. Thus, we could quickly integrate the software.”


Fig. 1: Functionality of SpaceObServer at SCHOTT Solar

Data exchange between the file system, the scan service, the database and the user

interface with automated dispatch of reporting e-mails to the employees.


Benefits

Disk space optimized and saved, redundant data deleted

Regular scans & complex analyses with database archiving

Automated employee reporting encourages a responsible handling of disk space

Administrativeeffort reduced to a minimum

Continuously andfully automaticallyin the background


Recognize Disk Space Bottlenecks Early

SCHOTT Solar applies SpaceObServer to monitor the disk space of 450 users in the first step, which corresponds to a data volume of 4 Terabyte with circa 6 million files. The scans are performed regularly and automatically: Small servers are scan-ned daily and large servers every 3 days. The timeframe of the scan depends on the performance of the server. “Our current fileservers with 1.8 and 3.3 Terabyte are

captured in only 60 minutes”, reports Erwin. The scans provide the ba-sis for the disk space management. With SpaceObServer, the admi-nistrators can regularly control the fileservers. Through continuous

capturing and logging of the disk space distribution in a SQL database, the evolution of the directory sizes can be traced and their future development estimated. There are numerous visualization features, also including a trend line for the history curve, which is calculated through linear regression. Disk space bottlenecks can be recog-nized early and located quickly with the help of these diagrams. The SpaceObServer Remote Client allows this to be done right from the user’s own workplace.

Automate Flexible Reporting

In addition to these centralized management functions, the software contains a very useful feature: SpaceObServer shows exactly what user is occupying how much space in which directory. SCHOTT Solar uses this information for a targeted and sys-tematic reporting to its employees. This is simplified by an OLE Automation interface which is included as a standard feature in SpaceObServer.1 Through this interface, data and diagrams can be exported automatically and sent from SpaceObServer with VBScript. Thus, every two weeks all employees receive an e-mail with an analy-sis of the disk space they are occupying.

Regain Server Capacity

The integrated file search in SpaceObServer discovers not only very large or tem-porary files but also duplicates. At SCHOTT Solar, the search results of duplicate files are stored as CSV lists on the drives of the respective employee. The reporting mail includes a hyperlink to the list so that employees can inspect and delete duplicate files systematically in their user directory. They re-ceive a quick overview of their drive by means of the integrated diagrams. “With SpaceObServer, we do not only regain valuable disk space but our em-ployees can independently identify and localize inefficient disk space use and gain an awareness how to handle amounts of data effectively,” says Erwin. “The com-bination of continuous scans and automated reporting creates transparency over

occupied disk space. We also appreciate that our emplo-yees‘ awareness of the handling of disk capacity will be

strengthened by SpaceObServer and that everyone can localize and independently optimize inefficient disk space use. After the JAM Software solution had been applied here, we quickly attained massive savings in disk space usage.”1 This is valid for SpaceObServer up to Version 4.3.2. From Version 5.0 on, only the Enterprise Edition includes OLE Automation. More information on the editions can be found on the website of SpaceObServer.



5.1 TB in60 Minutes

Gain an awarenessfor the effective

handling of amounts of data

Massivesavings in

disk space usage

“Many of our customers use the automation func-tion with VBScript to provide their employees with the analysis re-sults. Exports can be adapted flexib-

ly and without much implemen-tation effort to customer needs via the OLE interface.”

Joachim MarderManaging Director, JAM Software

“With SpaceOb-Server, we finally have the possi-bility to visualize for our employ-ees where which amounts of data are located, in a clear and easy

way. Now we know where our ‘graveyards of data’ are hidden. Using SpaceObServer, we are ca-pable of continuously monitor-ing and systematically optimizing our disk space - with minimal ef-fort and low costs.“

Christian Erwin IMS Lead, SCHOTT Solar


Fig. 2: Reporting e-mail automated by SpaceObServer at SCHOTT Solar

Fig. 2 shows a reporting e-mail that was generated and sent via the OLE interface in SpaceObServer at SCHOTT Solar. The message contains various statistics:



Size of the user‘s home directory (here: 1.57 Gigabyte)

Link to the duplicate files list which is located on the employee‘s drive

Space usage development as history chart (“History of Size”)

Grouping of all files based upon file age in form of a bar chart (“Distribution of File Age”)

Size of every folder of the first directory level as bar chart (“Distribution of Folder Size”)

Technical Data of the Project

Used Operating System: Windows Server 2008SpaceObServer supports all of the latest Windows client & server operating systems in 32 & 64 Bit

Used Database: MySQL All common databases are supported, e.g. Microsoft SQL Server1, Oracle, IBM DB2, Firebird

Used Programming Language for Automation: VBScript SpaceObServer supports all programming languages providing an OLE Auto-mation interface, e.g. VB.NET, C#, Delphi, Windows PowerShell, VBA

Number of Scanned Servers: 3

1 The Microsoft SQL Server Standard 2008 R2 is available in a cost-effective bundle with SpaceObServer. Tests conducted by JAM Software proved that, amongst the numerous SQL databases supported by SpaceOb-Server, this database performs best in combination with the disk space manager.

Supplier Profile

Based in Trier, JAM Software was founded by Joachim Marder in 1997 and has 18 employees. The software vendor is specialized in the develop-ment and sales of standard software solutions for the various demands of individual users, developers and cor-porations. With TreeSize, JAM Soft-ware established itself early as mar-ket leader in disk space management. Since then not only has the worldwide customer base steadily grown but also the product portfolio.www.jam-software.com


http://www.jam-software.com

efficiently manage disk space on the server - welcome to jam software

Documents