Network File Management
Time To Discover NFM
Network file management (NFM) can help your institution better manage data resources campuswide—markedly so.
VIRTUALIZATION HAS BEEN a buzzword
in IT the last couple of years. From servers
(e.g., VMWare) and networks
(network address translation [NAT]
and virtual private networks [VPNs]), to
application availability and performance
(load balancing), managing resource usage
and data delivery with virtualization devices
is a staple of many of today’s data infrastructures.
By breaking the traditional direct
physical access and inserting an abstraction
layer, what you see is what you get, but the
mechanics of delivery may be quite different.
Why Virtualization Is Worth It
The reason for the increase in virtualization
deployment is simple: The return on investment
(ROI) is significant. For example, load
balancers present a simplified interface to the
user that usually does not directly reflect the
resource. In other words, what may seem like
an independent application server to the end
user may actually be several dozen servers,
each handling a share of the load. In this instance, for example,
members of the application server pool may be taken
offline for maintenance, without the application delivery being
affected. Clearly, the savings involved in not interrupting the
business process make the expenditures (capital and administration)
for a load balancer solution thoroughly worthwhile.
Network file management is, in many ways, a load balancing
methodology for file access. It is sometimes
referred to as file virtualization because it acts as a proxy
between client file server requests and the file server
resources. NFM is sometimes confused with storage virtualization
(used in SANs—storage area networks—to virtualize
the storage media itself), although a complete storage
methodology may include both file and storage virtualization.
As with other virtualization schemes, NFM can provide
a significant reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO)
of systems by reducing storage and administration costs of
networked data.
Better (Much Better) Storage Management