RSS. RSS provides a key component that lets you better manage network shares, including users' My Documents offline files. By implementing RSS in conjunction with IntelliMirror, you can provide volume grooming for those shares and intelligently manage their data. For example, RSS lets you groom less frequently used files to secondary storage, thereby reducing the overall amount of data on the share. This action, in turn, reduces the amount of data you need to back up, which saves time and money. Although RSS can add complexity to the mix and the configuration might require a bit of fine-tuning, the rewards can outweigh these drawbacks. RSS is just another optional building block that you have at your disposal; the combination of RSS and IntelliMirror is more powerful than IntelliMirror alone because adding archival to Offline Files provides obvious benefits in certain scenarios.
VSS. The last ingredient in the recipe is VSS. So far, I've discussed technologies that have been available since the Win2K days. For this final ingredient, you need to turn to Windows 2003, which adds VSS as a new feature for OS services and applications. VSS creates copies of files stored in shared network folders. If you don't add VSS to the recipe, users will still have the backup-and-restore capabilities because IntelliMirror stores user data on the network share and regularly backs up that data. However, VSS dramatically improves recovery capabilities because it adds rapid recovery and the basis for rapid backup and restore, providing much richer earlier-version support than without VSS. By leveraging a VSS-instrumented backup-and-restore mechanism, you can make nightly Shadow Copies of network shares. If this data is lost or corrupted, rapid recovery is a snap. VSS is a huge improvement over traditional non-VSS backup-and-restore solutions. By improving earlier-version support, you let users see earlier Shadow Copy versions that are available for their My Documents folders. Users can even restore files from those earlier versions.
A Winning Combination
This recipe for supercharging Windows file services might not prove equally tasty to everyone, but you can see the power that Microsoft intended with the combination of IntelliMirror, RSS, and VSS. If you want to increase functionality, ease administration, enhance disaster recovery, and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), take a look at this powerful combination and see how one or more of these ingredients can help you get closer to file-sharing Nirvana.
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