What is this about? Information Technology is replacing central file storage services with new systems.
Who will this affect? Anyone who stores data on the central network servers, the P drive, the W drive, the Mac OS user shares, or any other share on the ULFILES server.
The Details
Information Technology recently purchased two new network file server systems. The new storage is larger, faster, more reliable, and easier to expand and manage than the old systems. It also provides the end user, with tools to recover lost or corrupted files. IT plans to transfer most current central data storage volumes to the new servers by Sept 1, 2006.
The most heavily used volumes are personal and web space (P: and W: drives, and the Mac equivalents), and shared departmental space. The current schedule to move these volumes is:
Personal/Web Space: Saturday, August 26th, from 5am to 12pm.
Departmental Space: Sunday, August 27th, from 5am to 12pm.
These dates will be finalized as we approach the end of August. Please watch the Notice Board for changes or confirmation of these dates.
Other, more limited use volumes we will be moved after contacting the groups affected and arranging a convenient time to transfer the data.
If you do not currently store data on the central network storage volumes, this upgrade will not affect you.
Windows Users
Because we are moving from a single server (“ULFILES”) to a pair of new servers, we needed to implement some new server names. To avoid having to remember which volumes are stored on which server, we have created a number of new server aliases. These aliases will allow us to logically group data volumes with server aliases, and in the future move these groups, with a minimum of disruption, from one server to another as required for growth, load balancing, or in the worst case, disaster recovery. Implementing this will require some configuration changes to users’ computers.
Your personal and web space volumes will be moved to the server “ULHOME”, but the changes required to mount them there will be made automatically for you. The P: and W: drives are mounted via a centrally managed login script which will be updated to use the new server alias, and will continue to mount the correct volumes after the files are moved. If you are an advanced user who has redirected your “My Documents” or other folders to the central file server, you may need to update the redirection to use the server alias “ULHOME”, or preferably just P:.
If you are mounting other central volumes besides your P: and W: drives, you will need to update your mounts.
All departmental volumes will need to be remapped using the server name “ULDEPT”. The current server name of “ULFILES” will be converted into an alias for “ULDEPT” and will be maintained for the short term, but users should switch to the “ULDEPT” name as soon as possible.
Research drives will need to be remapped through the server name “ULRESEARCH”.
The shared classes (often named “The S-Drive”) and scratch space will be mounted through the server name of “ULCLASSES”
If you feel comfortable making the changes on your own, follow these
instructions located at here.
If you are not comfortable re-mapping your shared drives, please feel free to contact the help desk, where they will walk you through the process, or schedule a visit from the desktop support staff.
If you remap your drives ahead of the official move date, you should not notice when the data is actually moved – the alias will follow.
Mac Users
The current Mac file server, “macserve.uleth.ca” has been adequate over the years, but is getting old, and becoming less stable. Upgrading the server is not an option, as newer versions of the Mac OSX Server software no longer have the required functionality. Fortunately, the desktop version of Mac OSX has the ability to mount Windows file shares natively, so this will allow Mac users to access their files in the same manner as the Windows users. Access to the current Mac fileserver will be discontinued after all data is migrated to the new storage.
If you are using OSX, instead of connecting to “afp://macserve.uleth.ca” on your computer, you will be connecting to “cifs://SERVER.uleth.ca”, where SERVER is one of the aliases listed in the Windows section above. Any shares mounted automatically on startup will need to be remapped. If you are an advanced user who uses resource forks, you will not be able to make this access change until AFTER the move date for that volume. The current “ULFILES” server does not handle them properly, so we recommend that no Mac users switch to the new server aliases until after the migration is complete for that group of data.
We are still evaluating appropriate procedures for this remapping process. The finalized instructions will be posted as soon as they are completed.
If you are using an older machine, running OS9 or earlier, other arrangements will need to be made, based on usage patterns and acceptability. Please contact the help desk so that we can evaluate the best migration path for you. Call 329-2490 or send email to help@uleth.ca
Who will this affect? Anyone who stores data on the central network servers, the P drive, the W drive, the Mac OS user shares, or any other share on the ULFILES server.
The Details
Information Technology recently purchased two new network file server systems. The new storage is larger, faster, more reliable, and easier to expand and manage than the old systems. It also provides the end user, with tools to recover lost or corrupted files. IT plans to transfer most current central data storage volumes to the new servers by Sept 1, 2006.
The most heavily used volumes are personal and web space (P: and W: drives, and the Mac equivalents), and shared departmental space. The current schedule to move these volumes is:
These dates will be finalized as we approach the end of August. Please watch the Notice Board for changes or confirmation of these dates.
Other, more limited use volumes we will be moved after contacting the groups affected and arranging a convenient time to transfer the data.
If you do not currently store data on the central network storage volumes, this upgrade will not affect you.
Windows Users
Because we are moving from a single server (“ULFILES”) to a pair of new servers, we needed to implement some new server names. To avoid having to remember which volumes are stored on which server, we have created a number of new server aliases. These aliases will allow us to logically group data volumes with server aliases, and in the future move these groups, with a minimum of disruption, from one server to another as required for growth, load balancing, or in the worst case, disaster recovery. Implementing this will require some configuration changes to users’ computers.
Your personal and web space volumes will be moved to the server “ULHOME”, but the changes required to mount them there will be made automatically for you. The P: and W: drives are mounted via a centrally managed login script which will be updated to use the new server alias, and will continue to mount the correct volumes after the files are moved. If you are an advanced user who has redirected your “My Documents” or other folders to the central file server, you may need to update the redirection to use the server alias “ULHOME”, or preferably just P:.
If you are mounting other central volumes besides your P: and W: drives, you will need to update your mounts.
All departmental volumes will need to be remapped using the server name “ULDEPT”. The current server name of “ULFILES” will be converted into an alias for “ULDEPT” and will be maintained for the short term, but users should switch to the “ULDEPT” name as soon as possible.
Research drives will need to be remapped through the server name “ULRESEARCH”.
The shared classes (often named “The S-Drive”) and scratch space will be mounted through the server name of “ULCLASSES”
If you feel comfortable making the changes on your own, follow these
instructions located at here.
If you are not comfortable re-mapping your shared drives, please feel free to contact the help desk, where they will walk you through the process, or schedule a visit from the desktop support staff.
If you remap your drives ahead of the official move date, you should not notice when the data is actually moved – the alias will follow.
Mac Users
The current Mac file server, “macserve.uleth.ca” has been adequate over the years, but is getting old, and becoming less stable. Upgrading the server is not an option, as newer versions of the Mac OSX Server software no longer have the required functionality. Fortunately, the desktop version of Mac OSX has the ability to mount Windows file shares natively, so this will allow Mac users to access their files in the same manner as the Windows users. Access to the current Mac fileserver will be discontinued after all data is migrated to the new storage.
If you are using OSX, instead of connecting to “afp://macserve.uleth.ca” on your computer, you will be connecting to “cifs://SERVER.uleth.ca”, where SERVER is one of the aliases listed in the Windows section above. Any shares mounted automatically on startup will need to be remapped. If you are an advanced user who uses resource forks, you will not be able to make this access change until AFTER the move date for that volume. The current “ULFILES” server does not handle them properly, so we recommend that no Mac users switch to the new server aliases until after the migration is complete for that group of data.
We are still evaluating appropriate procedures for this remapping process. The finalized instructions will be posted as soon as they are completed.
If you are using an older machine, running OS9 or earlier, other arrangements will need to be made, based on usage patterns and acceptability. Please contact the help desk so that we can evaluate the best migration path for you. Call 329-2490 or send email to help@uleth.ca