File Access across a WAN

Hello,

We are a medium sized A/E firm with 80+ users accessing project files in ADT
/ ABS across a Netware 6 WAN connecting 5 remote locations via T1+ speed.
The license manager works fine, but file access between the office locations
is painfully slow. We are strongly considering a doc. management system with
check-in check-out features, but are of course weighing our options before
spending that type of money.

Has anyone been or worked through a similar type of situation, and would you
be willing to share your experiences with me. Please email me out of the
group if necessary.

Dean Helsel

 

Thanks John! I understand what you are saying, and am just trying to gather
as much info as possible so that others will understand the pros-cons of
either route. The only benefit I see from the check-in check-out method
(assuming it copies x-refs with the "host" file) is that no additional
across WAN traffic would be required until you were done with the file
locally and putting it back to the network location. We have our project
data distributed such that each server at location A, B, C, D, & E host
different projects and are often accessed by users from the A/B/C/D/E
locations as well.

I am at the point where I wonder if all of the cross traffic between the
servers and users is problematic as well. Is it better for each office/user
to access a single "central" file location?

Dean

 

Trying it from a 'central WAN' site?

Also keep in mind, having a 1.5MB T1 does not mean each and every user gets
the full 1.5MB either. If you have 30 users accessing that T1 to pull data
from a remote in live read, then each user is basically only getting
50KB/sec - perhaps even less, only making things that much slower. You kind
of have to reverse engineer based on the file sharing system you figure. If
you want live read access at 1MB/sec, then multiply that number by the
number of users at any given time - you'd need a 30MB connection.

 

just got back from a Netware 6.5 seminar and NW6.5 has just what you're
looking for. [I think].

You can install a 'remote' Netware server that boots from a CD, contacts
your "main" Netware server for its configuration and then has a 'mini'
Netware 6.5 server at the remote location.

In a nutshell, the remote NW server emulates the main server on-the-fly.
It'll rsync the volumes, files, permissions _as needed_ from the main
server. At a predetermined interval, it'll rsync back the stuff that's
changed to the main server.

That way, you don't have to rely on the remote site for tape backups. Also,
if anything goes wrong (t1 line down, etc) users will still have access to
their files that reside locally on the remote system.

It sounds like heaven to me.

According to the presenter, you need only a PC class machine and [ideally] a
network attached storage device like a SNAP! server.

Check it out


B