The easy to install and simple to maintain low cost, high availability software
solution for Microsoft file servers.
The drive in business to minimize IT investments and maximize productivity through shared resources was the impetus behind the evolutionary shift from mainframes to networked computers and peripherals. Today, even small businesses heavily depend upon the bottom-line advantages of file servers that enable employees to share their files. Just how much would it cost your company in lost productivity and profitability to go a day without Microsoft® file servers? With Neverfail for File Server, you’ll never have to know.
The heart and soul of Neverfail for File Server – Neverfail Heartbeat
The most important consideration in protecting your Microsoft file server
environment is creating a real-time, duplicate copy of your file server data.
Neverfail Heartbeat sits at the core of Neverfail’s suite of affordable,
“cluster-class” solutions, replicating data from your active to your passive
server, whether they reside in the same server room, or across the globe.
Neverfail for File Server is the only high availability solution that proactively
monitors your entire file server environment
Business documents are often stored in shares on file servers, which are in
constant flux as files are created, edited and deleted. In addition, new shares
may be created, existing shares may be deleted or renamed, and security
settings or attributes can be modified.
Typical file server backup strategies that mix frequent incremental backups with occasional full backups may work in theory, but they cannot prevent losing changes to data after the last backup was finished. In addition, these types of backups do not address the redundancy required for high-availability. Backup archives may be available, but restoring data from multiple tapes is a time-consuming process with an open invitation for error.
Neverfail for File Server automatically configures protection for all of your file shares as they are created, edited, or deleted, and continually reconfigures itself to ensure that any and all changes are included in its replication set so that the file server’s data is always up-to-date and fully protected — no manual intervention required.
Neverfail for File Server can even be used in conjunction with Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) for added levels of protection. By configuring VSS with different snapshot intervals on your primary and secondary Neverfail servers, more frequent copies of old data are maintained. The combination of VSS and Neverfail for File Server gives you a robust failover environment that provides continual access to files, while doubling the performance of VSS in retrieving deleted documents compared to VSS alone.
In addition to monitoring the file server, Neverfail for File Server is the only cluster-class, high availability solution to proactively monitor the health of your entire file server environment, including: physical server hardware, network infrastructure and operating system. If any problem occurs, Neverfail can take a variety of preemptive, corrective actions without resorting to a full system fail-over. In extreme cases, a graceful switchover to the secondary server can occur automatically, ensuring continuous file server availability. Because switchovers are completely invisible to file server users, they are not impacted in any way… configuration changes to access shared data aren’t necessary, as the file shares appear exactly as before.
You’ll only find switch-back capabilities in Neverfail for File Server
In addition to offering both manual and automatic switch-over capabilities,
Neverfail for File Server also features the ability to seamlessly switch-back,
something replication solutions can’t offer. Whether your primary server is
down for several hours or even days, Neverfail will seamlessly resynchronize
your servers when the primary does come back online, and allow you to switch
your workload back to a normal production state within a matter of seconds by
the simple click of a button!
High availability over a LAN or WAN environment
Neverfail for File Server can be configured to protect your files in either a
LAN or WAN environment. Where bandwidth or network utilization is an issue or
needs to be reduced, the Neverfail Low Bandwidth Module (LBM) is available to
optimize and reduce the amount of data that is transmitted between the two
servers.
Reliability is the first and most crucial step to achieving high availability
The successful implementation and ongoing performance of any cluster-class high
availability solution is predicated upon a reliable technology platform.
Neverfail’s Server Check Optimization Performance Evaluation (SCOPE) is the
only automated software solution to deliver a comprehensive health “checkup” of
your server environment. SCOPE identifies existing configuration and
performance issues in your environment prior to installation of a high
availability solution and it provides “snapshots” of your environment to ensure
on-going reliability.
Key Features
| Monitors all key performance attributes |
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| Dynamically protects new file shares |
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| Improves performance of Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) |
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| Automatic and seamless switch-over, fail-over and switch-back of workload |
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Neverfail for File Server Summary
Shared documents are the very core of your business and are too important to
leave to partial solutions such as back-up and replication. And why settle for
a solution that focuses only on recovering hardware and data failures from a
primary server when Neverfail for File Server can deliver comprehensive,
proactive failure protection for all elements of your server environment? Only
Neverfail for File Server can deliver a cluster-class, high availability
solution that’s easy to install, simple to maintain and costs approximately
one-tenth the cost of other cluster-class solutions. With comprehensive
protection at such a low price, can you afford not to implement Neverfail for
File Server?
System Requirements
Primary server requirements
- Microsoft Windows 2000 or 2003 compatible server with 2GB of free system hard disk space. This should not be spread over several drives.
- A minimum of 512MB RAM is recommended. Exact requirements depend on application load.
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server latest SP version, or Microsoft Windows 2003.
Secondary server requirements
- Windows 2000 or 2003 compatible server with disk space and memory to match the Primary Server. Microsoft Windows 2000 or 2003 operating system with the same Service Pack applied as the Primary Server.
Network requirements
- 2 Network cards per machine (1 Public & 1 Channel) or 3 Network cards per machine (1 Public & 2 Channel).
Licensing
- Neverfail for File Server is licensed based on the Server in a pair with the greatest number of CPU’s.