Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed (224 page)

4. Click OK when the report options are configured.

5. A new window opens, prompting you to decide to wait for the report to generate

and automatically display the report or to generate the report in the background and

store it in the default report location. Select the Wait for Reports to be Generated

and Then Display Them option and click OK.

6. Each report will be displayed in a separate browser window or tab; close or save the

reports as desired.

Scheduling Reports to Be Generated on a Regular Basis

Reports can be generated on a regular basis (such as weekly or monthly), typically for the

purpose of reporting file storage information to management. To schedule a report, right-

click the Storage Reports Management node of the FSRM utility, and choose Schedule a

New Report Task. Then do the following:

1. Click on the Add button to choose the volume or file share that you want to gener-

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ate a report, such as R:\UserShares.

2. Choose which report or reports will be generated; by default, all reports will be

selected except the Files by Property report.

3. Choose the report format you want to use—for example, the default option of

DHTML.

4. Select the Delivery tab if the report should be emailed as well as stored in the global

StorageReports folder.

5. Select the Schedule tab, and click the Create Schedule button to create a schedule for

the automated report generation. Click OK when the desired schedule or schedules

are defined.

6. Click OK when you are finished.

The report or reports specified will be generated at the scheduled intervals and any email

addresses specified on the Delivery tab will have the reports emailed to them when the

reports are generated. The scheduled report will be listed in the tasks pane when the

Storage Reports Management node is selected. The scheduled report can be generated at

will by right-clicking on the scheduled report and selecting Run Report Task Now.

File Classification Management

As stated earlier in this chapter, Windows Server 2008 R2 FSRM includes a new feature

called file classification, based on the new File Classification Infrastructure or FCI. File

classification allows an organization to define properties and rules that will add specific

file properties to better define the characteristics of the classified files. File classification

properties are supported on a Windows Server 2008 R2 NTFS partition and the file classifi-

File Server Resource Manager (FSRM)

1141

cation properties will follow Microsoft Office 2007 files and SharePoint files when moved

around. All other files that are classified will have their properties stored within the NTFS

volume they are hosted on, but if the files are moved to other Windows Server 2008 R2

NTFS volumes, these properties will follow the files.

File classification in Windows Server 2008 R2 is the first release of this feature and is sure

to be more and more valuable as third-party Microsoft partners and independent software

vendors extend the functionality included with the default framework provided.

Currently, out of the box, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 allows administrators to

create file properties and automatically classify files with these properties based on the file

location and, in some cases, based on the content stored within the file. The steps to file

classification include, first, enabling and defining file properties that can be used for clas-

sification and, second, creating classification rules that will actually classify files according

to the criteria defined within the rule, and properties and values that are applied to this

rule. Once files are classified, file management tasks can be created to perform tasks upon

classified files, such as moving files to designated folders or performing custom tasks such

as running automated scripts to perform any number of tasks related to the particular file

classifications.

The best way to understand file classification is to start defining file classification proper-

ties, file classification rules, and file management tasks on data that has been copied from

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a server share to an isolated lab server running Windows Server 2008 R2. Once a file is

classified and has properties defined, these properties cannot be removed—they can only

be overwritten or merged with other properties, so performing any sort of learning or

testing on production data can result in undesired changes that would require heavy

manual work to reverse. To begin using the file classification features of Windows Server

2008 R2, install the File Server Resource Manager service and tool as previously described

in this chapter, then perform the steps outlined in the proceeding sections.

Classification Properties

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Classification properties are used to categorize files to be used later for file management

tasks or reporting. A classification property, as included with Windows Server 2008 R2,

includes the following classification property types:

. Yes/No

. Date-time

. Number

. Ordered List

. String

. Multichoice

. Multistring

To get a good understanding of how classification can be used, this section and the

following sections provide an example of how classification can be used to classify files

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CHAPTER 28

File System Management and Fault Tolerance

based on content that includes the word
password
. To do this, we will create a file property

type of Yes/No and create a classification rule to search the E:\ITDept folder for any files

containing the word and to classify these files as necessary. To perform this task, we must

first create the classification property. Perform the following steps to create the classifica-

tion property:

1. Log on to a Windows Server 2008 R2 system with the FSRM service and tool

installed, with an account with administrative rights.

2. Click Start, click All Programs, click Administrative Tools, and select Server Manager.

3. Expand Roles, expand File Services, expand Share and Storage Management, and

double-click on the File Server Resource Manager node beneath it.

4. Double-click Classification Management and select the Classification Properties node.

5. In the Actions pane, click on the Create Property link to start the creation of the

classification property.

6. In the Create Classification Property Definition window, type Files with

Passwords in the Property name section, enter a description, and choose the

Property type of Yes/No.

7. In the Value section, enter a description as desired and click OK to create the classifi-

cation property, as shown in Figure 28.16.

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FIGURE 28.16

Creating a new classification property.

Once the new classification property is created, we can create a classification rule that will

use this property to classify files that the rule determines to meet the criteria.

File Server Resource Manager (FSRM)

1143

Classification Rules

Once the file administrator has created the necessary file classification properties, they can

proceed in creating classification rules that will actually process and classify the files that

meet the rule criteria, by applying the necessary classification property values to the file

collections. To create a new classification rule, perform the following steps:

1. Log on to the same Windows Server 2008 R2 system that the Files with Passwords

classification property was previously defined on, with an account with administra-

tive rights.

2. Click Start, click All Programs, click Administrative Tools, and select Server Manager.

3. Expand Roles, expand File Services, expand Share and Storage Management, and

double-click on the File Server Resource Manager node beneath it.

4. Double-click Classification Management and select the Classification Rules node.

5. In the Actions pane, click on the Create a New Rule link to start the creation of a

new classification rule.

6. In the Classifications Rule Definitions window, type in the name of the rule as

Classify files with passwords and enter a description.

7. In the Scope section of the page, click the Add button to define the volumes and or

folders that this classification rule will be applied to. For our example, we will apply

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this rule to E:\ITDept. When the location is specified, all subfolders will be included.

8. Once the name, description, and file locations are defined, click on the

Classification tab and select Content Classifier from the Classification mechanism

drop-down menu.

9. In the Property Name section, select the Files with Passwords property and set the

property value to be assigned as Yes, as shown in Figure 28.17.

10. Click the Advanced button to set the additional parameters that will actually be used

to determine if the files match the criteria and should be classified with the property

defined in this rule.

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11. In the Additional Rule Parameters window, select the Additional Classification

Parameters tab. On this tab, administrators can define three different types of criteria

used to search with a files content. These three types are as follows:

.
RegularExpression—
The RegularExpression is the same as is used with .NET

programming and can be used to find complex or multiple types of data

formats, for more complex searches.

.
String—
The String type is used to find a very specific string, such as
password

that will not be dependent on the case of the string, although the string must

be an exact match. For example, the string
password
will not match
passwords
,

as that is a different string.

.
StringCaseSensitive
—The StringCaseSensitive is the same as the string, in

that the entire string must be an exact match, but the case must match. For

example, the StringCaseSensitive string of
Password
will not match the string

password
.

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CHAPTER 28

File System Management and Fault Tolerance

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FIGURE 28.17

Defining the classification criteria on a file classification rule.

12. For our example, we will specifically look for the word
password
and will not care

about the case. In the Name section, type in String and in the value type in

password, as shown in Figure 28.18. Click OK when completed.

13. Back on the Classification Rule Definitions page, click OK to complete the rule cre-

ation.

Once the rule is created, it can be scheduled or run manually. To run all of the rules

manually, in the tasks pane, right-click on the Classification Rules node and select Run

Classification with All Rules Now. Follow the steps to select the type of report that will be

generated and whether the administrator will wait for the classification to complete and

display the window or to have the process run in the background. If a schedule or a

manual run is performed, any files that meet the properties of any enabled classification

rules will be classified, unless these files have been previously classified.

File Management Tasks

File Management tasks is a new feature within the FSRM console. File Management tasks

can be run out of the box on a Windows Server 2008 R2 system, to either expire classified