Since its initial release almost 15 years ago, the product today known as Micro Focus Storage Manager has obtained a loyal set of supporting network administrators across multiple industries. That's because Storage Manager automates network file system tasks that are traditionally done manually, resulting in cost savings and assurance that tasks are being performed properly. When considering the cost of performing network management costs manually, Storage Manager tends to pay for itself within the first year of deployment.

Yet, an all too common scenario—especially around the time that a product license renewal is due—is for an upper level manager unfamiliar with the product to ask what Storage Manager is, what it does, and if it is needed. Up until now, network administrators had to take the time to demonstrate Storage Manager policy settings and their enforcement when events took place in the network directory service—a task that upper management oftentimes didn't have time for.

So it was partially with these loyal Storage Manager network administrators in mind that we developed Work Log Reports to quickly specify the actions that Storage Manager is doing to manage the network. Of course, there are other new enhancements in Storage Manager 5.2 for Active Directory as well.

Work Log Reports

The Work Log is a mechanism that maintains a history of Storage Manager events, or in other words, actions that Storage Manager has performed. The Work Log contains summary records for events that have run to completion or have been aborted by administrative action.

Work Log reports are built in SMAdmin using a pivot grid interface. There are four preset options for viewing data, along with a playground option that lets you choose the parameters and presentation of the report.



In the example above, the administrator is using the playground option of the Work Log Report to show Storage Manager events that have taken place. The playground option enables you to specify what fields to include in the report.

Storage Manager enables you to export Work Log reports to the following formats:

• CSV

• HTML

• MHT

• PDF

• RTF

• TXT

• XLS

• XLSX

The Work Log is an optional component of Storage Manager and requires you to install Apache CouchDB.

Updated Engine Status Page

Information on this page is now presented graphically. Additionally, the event logging is now on a persistent basis.



By holding down the Control key and selecting table cells, you can specify what parameters are graphed over a selected number of days.

Additional Enhancements

There are new Action Blocks for Move Schedule and Target Path.

Nested DFS Namespace Support addresses DFS configurations where a DFS link is configured to point to the root of a DFS namespace.

A new option for groom rules lets you now specify a set number of years that the contents of a user or group folder will be vaulted, based on a specified policy or groom operation. This is particularly useful for archiving files that have not been accessed or modified since a specific year.

Available Now

Micro Focus Storage Manager 5.2 for Active Directory is available now for download and does not require an updated license. Upgrade instructions are available in the updated Micro Focus Storage Manager 5.2 for Active Directory Installation Guide available on the Storage Manager documentation site.