File Management Suite Based on Identity and Policy by Novell

Novell, Inc. announced the release of Novell File Management Suite, an integrated file storage solution that provisions, moves, optimizes and reports on file storage based on user roles and customized business policies. For the first time, organizations, regardless of operating system or existing storage management solution, can intelligently manage file storage at its source, tying the file to the user for the entire data lifecycle. Providing organizations with a clearer picture of its data, Novell File Management Suite enables an organization to plan for and deploy an efficient and cost-effective storage infrastructure as well as execute on compliance and governance requirements.  

"For years, customers have faced the challenge of data management by saving everything – paying the price for added disk space without really having a logical way to find and access that information," said Costa Speliakos, chief executive officer of EOS Systems. "With the Novell File Management Suite, our customers now have the tools and power to better understand and manage their information assets, while reducing the administrative burden and cost of unstructured data."

Features
Novell File Management Suite reins in the chaos of unstructured data in typical file storage environments with automated reporting, provisioning, decommissioning, relocating, vaulting and tiering – all driven by organizational policies and based on employee identities yet with no impact to the end user. While existing storage solutions manage data at the block level, without any intelligence on the file’s context, relevance or priority, Novell File Management Suite leverages identity so that an organization’s premium storage resources can be reserved for the data that is most important to the business. This drives efficiency in IT hardware, administration and ultimately enhances collaboration between users. In addition, Novell File Management Suite complements a business’ existing storage resource management solutions such as EMC, HP, Hitachi, NetApp, and others and interoperates across Linux and Windows platforms.

Novell File Management Suite includes three products:

• Novell Storage Manager – automates routine user and file storage management tasks throughout the data’s lifecycle, allowing IT resources to focus on more mission critical projects.
• Novell Dynamic File Services – tiers files and folders based on customizable policies.
• Novell File Reporter – inventories file systems to uncover storage chaos, so that organizations can design efficient file storage infrastructures based on identity-driven policies.

"Businesses struggle with their file systems on a daily basis," said Colleen O’Keefe, senior vice president and general manager of Collaboration Solutions and Global Services. "For most organizations, file data – whether stored in archive for compliance or locally for daily use – is often inaccessible because it’s not intelligently categorized in relation to the user that created it. Novell File Management Suite changes all of that by allowing an organization to take an identity-aware approach to file management and manage data at its source – the user. Not all files are equally important to the business, so why store them the same way?"

Availability and Pricing
Novell File Management Suite is currently available. Pricing is $37.50 per user for the entire suite: Novell Storage Manager; Novell Dynamic File Services; and Novell File Reporter. Novell Storage Manager and Novell File Reporter are also sold independently for $15 per user. Above prices include license and maintenance.