Hi -

VFM is a version of StorageX from Nuview (http://www.nuview.com which Network Appliance use to create a GSN (Global Storage Namespace)

Nuview also has addition functionality that plugs into StorageX which is called ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) which takes advantage of virtulising the file system down to a file level.

From what I can see there is an SQL database behing the application that holds information about where everything is in the storage environment.

I have had StorageX installed on eval, and have recommended that we use it in favour of the Standard Windows DFS. It enables complex distributed storage environments to be presented, and manipulated very easily in comparison to the DFS with Windows.

I hope this info is of help -

Jason

-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com]On Behalf Of Charles Bartels Sent: 28 April 2005 23:37 To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: VFM and DFS

Hi,

My company currently has a couple of Netapps in the office along with a couple of Dell PC file servers.

The windows admins would like to implement DFS. I don't really know what that is, but it sounded kind of like the Netapp VFM (Virtual File Manager).

Could someone give me a short explanation of the two systems? Ideally I would like to consolidate our file servers onto the Netapps or at least avoid having to add unnecessary windows boxes. (These DFS servers sounded unnecessary to me, but if they are needed I wouldn't have a problem).

Thanks.

-C.