Northern Storage Suite is a software solution that resolves the technical and managerial issues associated with storing user-generated data, issues that are crucial and becoming more complex as the amount of stored data grows with more than 60% year-on-year.

Version 8 of Northern Storage Suite is a major new release, the greatest since the launch of the Suite in 2003, with more than 1,000 innovations and changes. Not only does version 8 offer increased quota and reporting functionality, as well as increased NAS support, Northern Storage Suite V8 pushes the boundaries for what an SRM tool can do.

NSS:Dashboard - Let NSS advise you

The most compelling innovation of version 8 is NSS:Dashboard, an intelligent and dynamic interface that combines analytics with recommended actions. Encouraging proactive management of your storage devices, it gives direct access to the different components of the suite. Multiple dashboards can be configured and emailed to different people within the organization: administrators, the CIO…

Dashboard with recommended action notification

High Level Quota Management, Top NAS Performance

Providing unmatched performance in monitoring and managing quotas in general and NAS quotas in particular, NSS V8 offers advanced quota types resulting in a more granular and efficient control over your storage environment. The new advanced quota types include the possibility of excluding sub-path, file type, and user when setting quotas. Hybrid quotas perfect the fit between Northern Storage Suite and NetApp with passive monitoring of the quotas by NSS (low impact on the traffic) and active locking/unlocking with NetApp’s FPolicy.

Dramatically accelerating response times in NAS environments, Northern Storage Suite V8 offers top performance for NAS quotas by maintaining a fast access list of files and paths sizes, updating the list as files are used, making it unnecessary to scan the whole network.

More than 1,000 innovations

Version 8 offers a great number of new additions such as:

• Graphical reporting for a faster and more accurate information delivery
• Smart Quota Columns, allowing you to retrieve Active Directory data in the quota view for faster mass and micro management
• Set Quota Wizard, a smarter and more efficient tool for designing and implementing quotas
• New reports based on Exchange mailbox size and NSS quota size and/or usage…

Smart and Effective Strategies

This powerful fourth-generation solution offers the ability to implement intelligent SRM strategies in heterogeneous environments managing various storage systems such as Windows, SAN and NAS devices from a single location. As a scalable solution, it offers granular control over enterprise-wide storage environments, allowing for organizations to match strategies with their specific needs.

The strategies implemented with Northern Storage Suite achieve spectacular results, reducing storage costs and saving time. They are easy to design and logically implemented, guaranteed to optimize your hardware investments: reclaim wasted capacity, control users' storage behaviour, involving users, and planning for the future.

Northern Storage Suite requires minimum administration, yet achieves dramatic results - the reason why over 28,000 organizations have chosen Northern's software solutions. This strong customer base includes such demanding companies as Microsoft, Boeing, ABN Amro, FujitsuSiemens, U.S. Army and AT&T.

At a more technical level Northern Storage Suite is comprised of five key areas of functionality, each offered through a dedicated workspace:

Storage Reporter - Identifying usage patterns, trends and forecasts
Storage Assistant - Automated clean-up, scheduled replication, uploading, etc.
Quota Server - Controlling data quantities at directory, group and user levels.
Storage Portal - User reports showing largest, oldest, duplicate and media files.
Storage Chargeback - Billing and reporting to spread cost awareness.

Each of these feature sets offer an extensive depth of functionality within a specific focus area and individual features can be applied to achieve valuable tactical results. Storage quotas can be used to prevent directories from exceeding a specific size for example, or binary file-type reports can be used to identify users who are renaming unwanted files.

As individual features Northern Storage Suite offers the tools required to resolve specific storage management issues. As a holistic and intelligent solution Northern Storage Suite offers an efficient method of resolving the most challenging technical and managerial issues associated with storing user-generated data; simplified administration and reduced costs.