Novell Filr 1.0.1 User guide

www.novell.com/documentation

Planning and Deployment Best

Practices Guide

Novell Filr 1.0.1

March 28, 2014

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Contents 3

Contents

About This Guide 5

1 Small or Large Deployment? 7

2 Deploying Filr as a Single Appliance 9

3 Understanding Large Filr-Clustered Deployments 11

3.1 Large Filr-Clustered Deployment Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.2 The Filr Appliances and Their Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

3.3 Appliance Disks and What They Store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

3.4 Understanding Filr Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

3.5 Clustering in Filr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

4 Planning a Large Filr-Clustered Deployment 17

4.1 Organization Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

4.1.1 Stakeholder Participation Is Key to a Successful Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

4.1.2 Meeting Organization Branding Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

4.1.3 Assessing the Business Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

4.2 Infrastructure Planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

4.2.1 Gathering VM Host Server Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

4.2.2 Ensuring Fault Tolerance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4.2.3 A Word About Inodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4.3 Users and Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4.3.1 Identify User Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.3.2 Watch Out for Duplicate User Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

4.3.3 Allow Enough Time to Import Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

4.4 Files, Folders, and Net Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

4.4.1 Assessing Your Files and Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

4.4.2 Making an Initial Net Folder Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

4.4.3 Identifying Each Net Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

4.4.4 Planning for Net Folder Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

4.5 Access and Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4.6 Filr Appliance Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

4.6.1 Filr Appliance-Specific Storage (/vastorage) Sizing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

4.6.2 Filr Appliance Remote NFS Share (/vashare) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

4.6.3 Filr Clustering Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4.7 Filr Search Appliance Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

4.7.1 Filr Search Disk Space Sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

4.7.2 Filr Search Caveats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

4.7.3 Content Index Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4.8 MySQL Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

4.8.1 My SQL Disk Space Sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

4.8.2 MySQL Deployment Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

4.9 Desktop Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

4.9.1 Memory Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

4.9.2 Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

4.10 Deployment Order and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

4 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

5 Example: Setting Up a Filr-Clustered Deployment 41

5.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

5.2 Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

5.3 Setting Up NFS Shared Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

5.4 Setting Up Two Filr Search Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

5.4.1 Downloading, Starting, and Configuring the Filr Search Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

5.4.2 Deploying the Filr Search Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

5.5 Setting Up the MySQL Appliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

5.5.1 Downloading, Starting, and Configuring the MySQL Appliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

5.5.2 Deploying the MySQL Appliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

5.6 Setting Up the Filr Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

5.6.1 Downloading, Starting, and Configuring the Filr Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

5.6.2 Deploying the Filr Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79

5.7 Creating the Filr Cluster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

5.8 Completing the Cluster Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

5.9 What’s Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94

6 Updating Filr 95

6.1 Updating from 1.0 to 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95

6.2 Do Not Use a Filr Rolling Update. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

6.3 Update Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95

6.4 How the Update Process Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

7 Operational Administration 97

7.1 Support for “DFS”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

7.1.1 Dynamic File Services (Windows). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

7.1.2 Distributed File Services (OES). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

7.2 Monitoring File Meta-Data Synchronization in a Filr Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98

7.3 Net Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

7.3.1 Net Folder Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

7.3.2 Access to a Net Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

7.3.3 Understanding the Implications of Re-sharing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

7.4 Backup and Restore of MySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

7.5 Backing up and Restoring Filr Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

7.6 Setting the URL for Desktop Client Downloads and Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

7.7 Monitoring the Indexing Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102

7.8 The File Upload Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103

7.9 System Performance Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103

A Documentation Updates 105

About This Guide 5

About This Guide

IMPORTANT: This guide is a work in progress. Therefore, we recommend that you check back

regularly for updates. The Filr development and sales teams are developing additional best practice

guidelines that will be published in the coming months.

If you have specific content suggestions or requests, please submit them by using the User Comments

feature at the bottom of each page of the online documentation.

 Chapter 1, “Small or Large Deployment?,” on page 7

 Chapter 2, “Deploying Filr as a Single Appliance,” on page 9

 Chapter 3, “Understanding Large Filr-Clustered Deployments,” on page 11

 Chapter 4, “Planning a Large Filr-Clustered Deployment,” on page 17

 Chapter 5, “Example: Setting Up a Filr-Clustered Deployment,” on page 41

 Chapter 6, “Updating Filr,” on page 95

 Chapter 7, “Operational Administration,” on page 97

 Appendix A, “Documentation Updates,” on page 105

This guide documents best practices for planning and deploying Filr within a production

environment. It supplements but doesn’t replace the Novell Filr documentation at http://

www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1/ (http://www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1/).

Audience

This guide is intended for Filr administrators.

Feedback

We want to hear your comments and suggestions about this guide and the other documentation

included with Novell Filr. Please use the User Comments feature at the bottom of each page of the

online documentation.

Documentation Updates

For the most recent version of this guide, visit the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Documentation website (http://

www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1/filr1_plan_deploy_bp/data/bookinfo.html).

Additional Documentation

The Novell Filr documentation on the web (http://www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1) is

constantly being updated. Therefore, you should always check the latest documentation when

looking for detailed information on Filr.

6 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

The following guides are particularly relevant to the information in this guide:

 Filr Overview “How Filr Works” Guide (http://www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1/

filr1_overvw/data/bookinfo.html)

 Filr Installation and Configuration Guide (http://www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1/

filr1_inst/data/bookinfo.html)

1

Small or Large Deployment? 7

1

Small or Large Deployment?

IMPORTANT: This guide covers only two deployment scenarios:

 Small Deployment: A single “all-in-one” Filr appliance that performs all of the functions

required to deliver Filr services.

 Large Filr-Clustered Deployment: Multiple Filr, Filr Search, and MySQL appliances that

perform the functions required to deliver Filr services.

All recommendations and instructions in this guide involve two Filr Search appliances and at

least two Filr appliances that access a common NFS shared storage location.

Large, non-shared Filr deployments are not discussed because performance and scalability testing

have shown no significant differences between a non-shared Filr configuration and a small (single-

appliance) configuration.

Before deploying Filr, you must determine whether your organization’s long-term needs dictate a

small deployment or a large Filr-clustered deployment. The information in this guide can help you

make that determination.

Figure 1-1 outlines basic capacity differences between small and large Filr-clustered deployments.

8 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

Figure 1-1 Current and Future Load Requirements Determine Which Deployment Can Meet Your Organization’s Needs

For more information on small and large deployments, see “Small Installation Vs. Large Installation”

in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

Single Appliance

Running

Filr, Filr Search,

and MySQL

Small Deployment

• 100 active, simultaneous user

connections

• 30,000 files per Net Folder

• 50 total Net Folders

• 500 subdirectories per

Net Folder

• 500,000 files in all Net Folders

(including Home directories)

Total Load Will

Never* Exceed:

Filr

Shared

Storage

Search

MySQL

Server

Large Filr-Clustered Deployment

• 500 active, simultaneous user

connections per Filr appliance

For example, 2,000 = 4 appliances

• 100,000 files per Net Folder

• 2,000 subdirectories per Net Folder

• 5,000,000 files in all Net Folders

(including Home directories)

Recommended Load**

for Filr 1.0.1***:

**** Large deployments are expandable by adding as many

Filr appliances as needed.

* A small deployment has absolute

scale and capacity limits because:

****

** System capacity is impacted by the following:

• Number of files

• How often the data changes

• Network latency

• File system configuration

****

• It cannot be upgraded or

migrated to a large deployment

with multiple appliances.

• It consists of a single appliance.

*** Future versions, such as Filr 1.1, will deliver very significant

performance, scale, and capacity improvements.

2

Deploying Filr as a Single Appliance 9

2

Deploying Filr as a Single Appliance

IMPORTANT: The primary best practice for small Filr deployments is to ensure that a small

deployment will meet your organization’s needs in the foreseeable future. A large percentage of past

Filr support incidents come down to the simple fact that the service load was seriously

underestimated. As a result, organizations have had to begin again with their deployments.

Novell strongly recommends that you thoroughly assess your organization’s needs before

proceeding with a small deployment.

If you are certain that your organization’s file service load will never exceed the small deployment

capacity limits outlined in Figure 1-1 on page 8, then you can safely proceed with a small deployment

as outlined in this section.

If you are not certain, complete the planning and other instructions in this guide, beginning with

Chapter 3, “Understanding Large Filr-Clustered Deployments,” on page 11, before proceeding.

This Best Practices Guide Focuses on Large Filr-Clustered Deployments

Setting up a single Filr appliance is straight-forward and well documented in the Filr online

documentation (http://www.novell.com/documentation/novell-filr1). The following sections provide

only an overview of the basic processes you need to follow, and include links into the online

documentation.

Getting Started with Your Small Filr Deployment

The main processes involved in beginning a small deployment are illustrated and explained below.

Figure 2-1 A Small Deployment of Filr

Attach to

Virtual Machine (VM)

Host

Filr-version

.zip

or

.tar

A

B

Data disk

(mandatory)

Adjust VM

Configuration

Settings

Virtual Appliance

on

VM Host

Basic

Appliance

Settings

Power

On

Edit

Appliance

Running

● Add a Hard Disk

● RAM

● CPU

● Passwords

● Network

● Time

Filr, Search, and MySQL

Set

10 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

Setting Up Your Small Deployment

After your Filr appliance is running on the network, you need to configure it with settings for the

users and groups, the files and folders that they will access, and the permissions that they need in

order to utilize Filr.

Be sure to complete the instructions in the following sections in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and

Configuration Guide:

 “Small Deployment Configuration”

It is especially important to adjust the Java Heap size to 8 GB as recommended in “Small

Installation (Filr Appliance):”.

 “Setting Up the Filr Site”

Letter Details

Download and deploy the software for your chosen virtualization platform as instructed in

“Downloading the Filr Appliance and Configuring the Virtual Environment” in the Novell Filr 1.0.1

Installation and Configuration Guide.

IMPORTANT: The Novell best practices recommendation is to configure a small deployment

appliance with 4 CPUs and 12 GB memory.

Specify the appliance’s basic configuration, which includes administrative users’ passwords, IP

address settings, and the time zone and NTP time source, as instructed in “Installing the Filr

Appliance” in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

These settings are common to all Novell appliances.

A

B

3

Understanding Large Filr-Clustered Deployments 11

3

Understanding Large Filr-Clustered

Deployments

 Section 3.1, “Large Filr-Clustered Deployment Overview,” on page 11

 Section 3.2, “The Filr Appliances and Their Roles,” on page 12

 Section 3.3, “Appliance Disks and What They Store,” on page 13

 Section 3.4, “Understanding Filr Storage,” on page 14

 Section 3.5, “Clustering in Filr,” on page 14

3.1 Large Filr-Clustered Deployment Overview

No two organizations’ large Filr-clustered deployments are identical, but Figure 3-1 illustrates the

components that are common to many of them.

12 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

Figure 3-1 Typical Components of a Large Filr Deployment

3.2 The Filr Appliances and Their Roles

The appliances in a large Filr deployment perform three distinct roles that are essential to delivering

Filr services: Filr, Filr Search, and MySQL. For more information, see “Filr Applications and

Appliances” in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

Letter Details

Workstations and devices running Filr software can access Filr from anywhere on the Internet.

L4 switches provide load balancing and security.

Multiple Filr appliances service incoming requests for access to the organization’s files and

folders. Because the appliances use shared storage, they all have access to the same data and

configuration settings.

Two Filr Search appliances provide content indexing of data and folders. They also help with the

synchronization of files between the file servers and various Filr clients.

Filr leverages existing MySQL database services for storing and retrieving configuration settings

and user/group identities.

Filr doesn’t require any changes to the organization’s NetWare, OES, or Windows file servers.

External

Firewall

Anywhere

Personal Devices,

Workstations,

Browsers

Internal Network

w

Windows

Open Enterprise

Server

NetWare

DMZ Network

Internal

Firewall (optional)

Application Delivery

Controller (ADC)

L4 Switch

ADC

L4 Switch

Filr

Shared

Storage

Search

A

B

C

MySQL

Server

MySQL

Server

A

B

C

Understanding Large Filr-Clustered Deployments 13

Table 3-1 Appliance Role Summary

3.3 Appliance Disks and What They Store

Table 3-2 summarizes the different appliance storage locations in a large, Filr-clustered deployment.

Filr Filr Search MySQL

Role

 File access and sharing  Content indexing for

searching purposes

 Database storage

retrieval of file

metadata, system

configuration, and user/

group identities

Number

Required

 At least one and as

many as the service

load demands

 Two  One

Dependencies

 At least one Filr Search

appliance

 Access to a MySQL

database

 None  None

Functions

 Run a number of web-

based services that are

responsible for Filr client

and web client (browser)

interaction with the rest

of the system.

 Synchronize Net

Folders.

 When indexing applies,

extract indexable

content from

synchronized files and

send it to the Filr Search

appliance to be indexed.

 Accept information to be

indexed

 Respond to user-

initiated search

requests from Filr

Appliances

Store and provide access to

the following:

 Configuration settings

for all of the Filr cluster

appliances

 Information on the

users and files within

the system

Best Practices Required:

Configure /vashare to point to

a remote NFS disk that all Filr

appliances share in common.

Strongly recommended:

Deploy two Filr Search

appliances to provide fault

tolerance and prevent

desktop clients from having

to re-download all

synchronized files when

reindexing occurs.

Strongly recommended:

Configure Filr to use a

qualified DBA and high-

availability in-house MySQL

installation whenever

possible.

14 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

Table 3-2 Appliance Storage

3.4 Understanding Filr Storage

Filr acts as an abstraction layer to the storage on your organization’s file servers and can also offer

Personal Storage.

 Net Folders: Pointers to data stored on your existing OES or Windows file servers

 Personal Storage: Data that is stored in Filr

For single Filr appliances, Personal Storage exists on the appliance’s

/vastorage

mount point.

For Filr cluster appliances, Personal Storage exists on a remote NFS directory that is mounted as

/vashare

on each Filr appliance that shares it.

3.5 Clustering in Filr

In this guide, the term “clustering” is used in two different ways:

 Filr-Clustering: Multiple Filr appliances store common configuration settings and data in the

same, mutually accessible storage location. Each appliance accesses the storage through a mount

point named

/vashare

. The dialogs used to configure Filr to use shared storage refer to this as

“clustering.” Shared storage provides fault tolerance and high availability in the sense that, if

one Filr appliances goes down, other Filr appliances have access to the same settings and data.

This guide refers to shared storage configurations as Filr-clustering.

Boot Partition (Hard Disk 1) VM Hard Disk 2 Remote NFS-based Storage

Mount Point:

/

Recommended Size: 100

GB of disk space

Required on: Filr, Filr

Search, and MySQL

appliances

Purpose: Stores the

following:

 All of the binary,

configuration, and other

files required for the

operating system to run

appliance services

 Log files

Because log files are

continually growing and

can consume large

amounts of disk space,

you should regularly

delete old log files.

Mount Point:

/vastorage

Recommended Size: 25 GB

of disk space

Required on: Filr, Filr

Search, and MySQL

appliances

Purpose: Stores the

following:

 Configuration files that

are used for appliance

upgrades

 Ganglia files that are

used to store

monitoring information

Mount Point:

/vashare

Recommended Size: Equal to the size of all

files in the Personal Storage (My Files area), plus

storage of HTML renderings and text extractions

Required on: Filr appliances in large, Filr-

clustered deployments

Purpose: Stores the following:

 Personal Storage files in My Files

 Temporary files

 Cached HTML renderings

Because cached files are not automatically

deleted, you should regularly clean up the

/

vashare/cachefilestore

area.

Understanding Large Filr-Clustered Deployments 15

Of course, shared storage locations themselves are neither fault-tolerant protected nor highly

available unless traditional cluster services are utilized. This leads to the second usage of

clustering or traditional clustering as it is referred to in this guide.

 Traditional Clustering: In an enterprise environment, fault tolerance and high availability are

important for the shared storage that Filr appliances access. The MySQL server and database

that Filr appliances access should be protected as well.

16 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

4

Planning a Large Filr-Clustered Deployment 17

4

Planning a Large Filr-Clustered

Deployment

 Section 4.1, “Organization Needs,” on page 17

 Section 4.2, “Infrastructure Planning,” on page 18

 Section 4.3, “Users and Groups,” on page 21

 Section 4.4, “Files, Folders, and Net Folders,” on page 22

 Section 4.5, “Access and Security,” on page 31

 Section 4.6, “Filr Appliance Planning,” on page 32

 Section 4.7, “Filr Search Appliance Planning,” on page 34

 Section 4.8, “MySQL Planning,” on page 36

 Section 4.9, “Desktop Considerations,” on page 36

 Section 4.10, “Deployment Order and Recommendations,” on page 37

4.1 Organization Needs

A thorough assessment of your organization’s needs is key to ensuring that Filr meets expectations.

There is no absolute “one size fits all” approach for successful Filr deployments. Each organization

has unique requirements, environments, resources, and project management approaches. The

following sections present general best practices for ensuring a successful Filr deployment:

 Section 4.1.1, “Stakeholder Participation Is Key to a Successful Rollout,” on page 17

 Section 4.1.2, “Meeting Organization Branding Requirements,” on page 18

 Section 4.1.3, “Assessing the Business Requirements,” on page 18

4.1.1 Stakeholder Participation Is Key to a Successful Rollout

Stakeholder participation is key to a successful Filr deployment. Plan to involve those in your

organization who are responsible for affected systems and services as early in the deployment

process as possible.

Include All Functions

Consider involving representatives from as many of the following functions as applicable in your

organization:

 Management

 User community

 Server administration

18 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

 Database administration

 Network administration

 Directory service administration

 Security administration

Define and Test Use Case Scenarios

Write up use cases for how the people in your organization will use Filr.

For example:

 Users accessing and viewing files through the Filr web client

 Desktop users accessing and synchronizing files using the Filr desktop clients

 Mobile app users accessing and viewing files

4.1.2 Meeting Organization Branding Requirements

Some organizations have branding requirements for any interfaces that employees and others use.

For information on the branding capabilities of Filr, see “Setting Up Site Branding” in the Novell Filr

1.0.1 Administration Guide.

4.1.3 Assessing the Business Requirements

Be sure to assess your organization’s business requirements first, then define the technical

requirements for meeting the business objectives. Project stakeholder input can be extremely

valuable in this process.

 Discuss what is happening within the organization on the file-access and file-sharing fronts.

 Identify key business drivers:

 Is there a need to make corporate data available via mobile devices?

 Is desktop access required as well?

 What types of data does the organization need to expose?

 Are you planning to allow storage and access to personal data?

 Is there a need to share internally?

 Is there a need to share externally? If so, are there any policies that apply?

 Are there compliance and regulatory standards that must be met?

4.2 Infrastructure Planning

 Section 4.2.1, “Gathering VM Host Server Requirements,” on page 19

 Section 4.2.2, “Ensuring Fault Tolerance,” on page 20

 Section 4.2.3, “A Word About Inodes,” on page 21

Planning a Large Filr-Clustered Deployment 19

4.2.1 Gathering VM Host Server Requirements

1 Determine the Filr component server hardware configurations; from this information determine

the hosting server requirements.

2 Use the above disk space requirements and Filr installation manual server requirements as

guides for determining memory, disk space, and processor requirements.

3 Ensure that the required disk space and memory are available for the Filr deployment.

4 Test and monitor your pilot deployment to identify connection usage patterns and determine

how many Filr servers are required. Currently, a single Filr server can service approximately 500

concurrent user connections.

For example, you might find that two Filr servers would serve 3,000 users given that all of them

are not concurrently connected.

Supported VM Host Platforms

Filr appliances can be hosted on the following software virtualization platforms:

 “VMware” on page 19

 “Xen” on page 20

 “Hyper-V” on page 20

VMware

 The following VMware host servers are supported for hosting the Filr appliance:

 ESXi 5.5.x with the latest update

 ESXi 5.1.x with the latest update

 ESXi 5.0 with the latest update

 ESX 4.1.x and ESXi 4.1.x with the latest update

 (Optional) you can generate an up-to-date compatibility matrix of supported VMware host

servers by accessing the VMware Compatibility Guide (http://www.vmware.com/resources/

compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software&testConfig=16) that is provided by

VMware.

To generate the correct chart from the VMware Compatibility Guide:

1. Ensure that Guest OS is selected in the What are you looking for field.

2. In the OS Vendor field, select SUSE, then in the OS Family Name field, select SUSE Linux

Enterprise 11.

3. Click Update and View Results, then look at the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2

64-bit line of the provided table.

 Novell recommends that you install VMware Tools on the host server. The path to do this

depends on your host platform. For example, for ESXi 5.5, the path is Inventory > Virtual Machine

> Guest > Install tools. For instructions and help, use your favorite Internet search engine or access

the VMware support site (http://www.vmware.com/support.html).

20 Novell Filr 1.0.1 Planning and Deployment Best Practices Guide

 You will need to use either the VMware web client (for ESXi 5.5), a VMware vSphere client 4.x,

or VMware vSphere client 5.x on your management workstation for accessing the host server

and appliance for initial configuration.

Not all versions of the vSphere client are compatible with versions of VMware ESX and ESXi.

For a complete matrix of compatibility, refer to the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes

(http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php) that are provided by

VMware.

Xen

Xen is certified to host Filr appliances on the following platforms:

 SLES 11 SP2, 64-bit

 SLES 11 SP3, 64-bit

Hyper-V

Hyper-V is certified to host Filr appliances on the following platforms:

 Windows 2012 Server (as a Role)

 Windows 2008 R2 Server (as a Role)

 Hyper-V Server 2012 (standalone)

 Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 (standalone)

Virtual Machine Memory Requirements

Based on the defined files and folder, indexing, and search requirements, define the estimated space

needed for the Filr, MySQL, and Search servers. Check the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and

Configuration Guide for the latest data and start with the recommended minimums. Use the following

as a guide:

 Filr Appliance (each): 8 GB of memory and 2 CPUs. At least half of the memory should be

dedicated to the Java heap.

 Database Appliance (if no in-house MySQL service is available): 4 GB of memory and 2

CPUs. (More memory is required if there are more than 1,000 users on the system.)

 Search Index Appliance (2 required): 4 GB of memory and 2 CPUs. (More memory is required

if there are more than 1,000 users on the system.) About 75% of the memory should be dedicated

to the Java heap.

For more information, see “Filr Server Requirements” in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and

Configuration Guide

4.2.2 Ensuring Fault Tolerance

 “Filr Performance and High-Availability” on page 21

 “Filr Search Redundancy” on page 21

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