NAB: EditShare XStream EFS Shared Storage Systems With ACL Media Spaces Feature

EditShare LLC announced its XStream EFS shared storage solutions will feature ACL Media Spaces as well as enhanced storage space utilization reporting.

XStream EFS shared storage system

“The big attraction of ACLs is the fine-grained control over user permissions. While EditShare has traditionally focused on keeping storage management tools simple for creative users, ‘power-user’ administrators who are more accustomed to SAN storage and Windows-NT style controls will appreciate this new addition,” comments Bill Thompson, manager, storage product, EditShare.

Along with the ACL Media Spaces, the company has revamped the way it reports used and free space on its EFS systems.

“Because EFS administrators can choose between several different file protection schemes, each requiring different amounts of storage capacity overhead, showing how much physical disk space is being used by a set of files, and reporting remaining capacity, can require some tedious mental gymnastics,” says Thompson. “Our new reporting package dramatically simplifies the situation.“

EFS ACL Media Spaces and storage space reporting capabilities was demonstrated at NAB 2018.

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XStream ACL Media Spaces
The ACL Media Space feature satisfies organizations who prefer to manage storage via Access Control Lists instead of ‘read-only’ or ‘R/W’ rules that govern current EFS media spaces. ACL Spaces are managed in Finder and Windows Explorer extensions that are installed with EditShare Connect. Users with the ACL Management Limited Administrative permission can modify ACL Space permissions. A future release will include a ‘Full Control’ attribute which gives non-limited administrative users the right to set ACLs where they have been given full control.

Key ACL options:

• ACL entries can be created for local users and groups, as well as Active Directory users;

• ACL entries govern read, write, and execute access;

• ACL entries on directories can be set to be ‘Inherited’ or not. If they are inherited, all files and sub-directories made inside that directory will inherit the same ACL;

• ACL entries can be applied on a single object (file or directory), on all files in a directory, or recursively down to everything inside and underneath a directory;

• ACL entries can be added: modified, or removed for one or more users at a time;

• Users who have ACL-setting authority can take ownership or change the group of a file or directory;

• It will be possible to create ‘Drop Boxes’ where users can write files but then can’t see what they wrote – or what anybody else wrote.

Improved space utilization reporting
Before the release of the XStream EFS scale-out storage solutions, it was simple to view how much space was being used on the company’s storage systems, and how much space remained. The XStream EFS release brings back that simplicity offering a visual easy-to-read dashboard that summarizes available usable space whether you are using traditional media spaces or ACL managed spaces.