An optional agent for OES or Windows servers to watch file system activity and to ping Filr to run a scan on the folder containing the changes (file modification, delete, create). The agent wouldn't actually do any scanning and should just be a light agent to tell Filr something has changed at a location.
This would allow realtime updates for What's New, searching and desktop synchronisation. It would additionally make Filr faster in general for displaying changes to file system when browsing (web/mobile/desktop)
On large systems (100's or 1000's of users and many millions of files) this would reduce the need for scheduled scans which can often only be run once a day/week and the reliance on JIT to detect changes which on large systems means changes go unnoticed. This means items are not in What's New and cannot be searched for.
On linux there are tools like inotify, fanotify, FAM, gamin and there will be similar options for windows serves. NSS already has auditing (VIGIL) which would provide similar information. The agent would need to filter the activity to just file share locations.
It would also need to support OES Cluster Services (NCS) and cope with NSS volumes moving between servers.
This would allow Filr to scale for larger customers.
This should be optional in addition to scheduled scans and JIT.
by: Steven W. | over a year ago | Administration
Comments
Duplicate of https://www1.v1ideas.com/MFI/novell-filr/Idea/Detail/2119
This isn't a duplicate of https://ideas.microfocus.com/MFI/novell-filr/Idea/Detail/2119
This idea is about a new feature, LIVE notification of file changes.
The other idea is to move the FAMTD and Java file scanning processes on to the file server. Which is moving an existing feature closer to the files to reduce network bandwidth. This would also require the File servers to be well specified with hardware as it is CPU and Memory intensive.
Live notification of file changes would remove the latency in browsing the file system as FILR would already know of any changes without needing JIT Scans. The desktop client uses file system change notification to detect changes made locally withing seconds, probably miliseconds. I am suggesting we have a similar feature on the file server itself in a lightweight agent.
You could however combine both of these ideas into one agent.
Reference material which should help explain my idea
Obtaining Directory Change Notifications
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365261(v=vs.85).aspx
FileSystemWatcher Class
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.filesystemwatcher.aspx
Linux Inotify
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inotify
Linux: How to Monitor File System for Changes
http://www.digitalinternals.com/unix/linux-monitor-file-system-changes/397/
Hi Steve, sorry I linked to the wrong IDEA. I'm pretty sure I created the same IDEA a long time ago but just can't find it back here:/ So, in short I share your pain in that this IDEA is still not implemented as we probably would agree it's a pretty open door to implement such a thing. The point is just that someone a looong time ago decided one should not never have to install a thing in a server backend. Pretty sure it's already on the PM radar as I've been screaming for this feature too from the Filr alfa stage:)
Having a server side agent would just solve a lot of pointless syncing, both scheduled (lot of traffic) as well as JITS (which does work well for the user experience as it slows down browsing speed). I would say the scheduled sync's are only needed for scheduled maintenance and re-sync in case a "crash" or such happened and to get back in sync.
These things could just live side by side: those that do not want to install an agent on a server can just keep on using the scheduled/JIT sync and those that do not care can have the agent installed and enjoy a fast & always up to date Filr experience:)