Pinnacle Systems Unity MediaNet - 2.0 Management Guide

Avid Unity™ MediaNet

Management Guide

Release 2.0

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Trademarks

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Avid Unity MediaNet Management Guide • Part 0130-04884-01 Rev. A • July 2001

Using This Guide

Who Should Use This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi

About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi

Symbols and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

If You Need Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Related Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

If You Have Documentation Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiv

Chapter 1 MediaNet Management Overview

Management Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2

Configuring Your Workgroup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2

Overall Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-3

Setting Up and Managing Your Drive Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4

Assigning Drives to Allocation Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4

Creating and Sizing Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4

Data Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5

Access Control (Users and Access Privileges) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-6

Management Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-7

Setup Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-7

Administration Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-8

Monitor Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-9

Chapter 2 The Setup Manager

Setup Manager Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-2

Starting the Setup Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-4

Using the Setup Manager in a Failover Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . 2-4

Failover Configuration Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-4

Determining the active File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-5

Starting and Stopping the File Manager Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-5

Chapter 3 Configuring General, Failover, and Remote Error

Notification Parameters

Configuring General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-2

Configuring File Manager Failover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-4

Failover Configuration Procedure Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-5

Step 1: Setting Up the Failover Connection on the First

File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-5

Step 2: Setting Up the Failover Connection on the Second

File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-6

Step 3: Validating the Failover Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-8

Step 4: Starting the First and Second File Managers. . . . . . . . . . 3-8

Setting Up Email Error Notification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-9

Configuring the Email Error Notification Service . . . . . . . . . . . 3-9

Setting Up Email Error Notification Contacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-10

Chapter 4 Managing Your MediaNet Drive Hardware

Creating a New Drive Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-2

Using The Configuration Assistant to Create a Drive Set . . . . . 4-2

Manually Creating a Drive Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-3

Adding New Storage to Your MediaNet workgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-5

Adding Active Data Drives to an Existing Drive Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-6

Adding Drives That Were Previously Used as Data Drives

in Another Drive Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-6

Adding Drives That Have Been Previously Used With

Another Application (For Example, MediaShare F/C) . . . . . 4-7

Creating Data Drives from Raw Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-8

Removing Drives From Your MediaNet workgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-9

Removing Active Data Drives From an Existing Drive Set. . . . 4-9

Physically Removing Storage from Your MediaNet

workgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-10

Setting Drive Mode Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-11

Deleting an Existing Data Drive Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-12

Rebuilding an Existing Data Drive Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-12

Bringing the Drive Set Online and Taking It Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-13

Bringing the Drive Set Online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-13

Taking the Drive Set Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-14

Identifying a Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-14

Chapter 5 The Administration Tool

About the Administration Tool User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-2

User Interface Component Descriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-3

User Interface Tab Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-4

Getting Help With the Administration Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-5

Starting The Administration Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-5

Logging Into the Administration Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-5

Administration Tool Preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-6

Setting Administration Tool Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-6

Exporting and Importing Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-10

Setting the Administration Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-11

Setting Workspace and Monitor Graph Bar Colors. . . . . . . . . . 5-12

Changing Your User Account Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-13

Changing Your Workspace Tab Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-14

Changing Your Monitor Tab Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-16

Reestablishing the Administration Tool’s Connection

to the File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-17

vii

Chapter 6 Managing Allocation Groups

Allocation Groups Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-2

Allocation Group Usage Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-3

Creating a New Allocation Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-4

Adding Drives to an Existing Allocation Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-5

viii

Removing Drives from an Existing Allocation Group . . . . . . . . . . . 6-7

Renaming an Allocation Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-8

Deleting an Allocation Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-9

Chapter 7 Managing Workspaces

The Workspace Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-2

The Workspace List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-3

Context-Sensitive Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-6

Creating New Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-7

Duplicating Existing Workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-8

Changing Workspace Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-9

Increasing Workspace Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-10

Decreasing Workspace Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-10

Workspace Resize Utility Feature Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-11

Renaming Workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-12

Deleting Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-13

Protecting Workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-14

Enabling Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-14

Enabling Protection of New Files Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-15

Disabling Protection of New Files Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-16

Protecting All Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-16

Unprotecting All Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-17

Optimizing Workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-17

Moving a Workspace to Another Allocation Group . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-18

Chapter 8 Managing User Accounts and Access Privileges

The User Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-2

The Guest Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-3

Creating User Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-3

Duplicating Existing User Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-4

Renaming User Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-5

Changing User Passwords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-6

Deleting User Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-7

Workspace Access Privileges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-8

Access Privilege Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-9

Changing Workspace Access Privileges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-9

Enabling and Disabling Workspace Resize Privilege. . . . . . . . . . . . 8-11

Enabling Workspace Resize Privilege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-11

Disabling Workspace Resize Privilege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-11

Chapter 9 Monitoring System Usage and Messages

The Monitor Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-2

Changing the Monitor List Graph Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-3

Selecting Linear or Logarithmic Graph Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-3

Scaling the Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-3

Saving Your Monitor List Graph Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-4

The Log Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-4

Viewing and Managing the Log File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-5

Appendix A Managing Drive Problems

Identifying Bad Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2

Repairing the Drive Set by Swapping Out a Bad Data Drive . . . . . . A-2

To Repair the Drive Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-3

Replacing Bad Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-5

Appendix B Advanced Support Tools

Server Log Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2

Text Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2

Disk Error Analyzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2

NtStatDump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-3

RecoverDisks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-3

Avid Unity Profiler

™ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-4

Appendix C Remote Administration Using the Text Console

Running the Text Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2

Installing a Telnet Server on the File Manager System for

Remote Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2

Running the Text Console Remotely Via Telnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2

Running the Text Console Locally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3

Using the Text Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4

Command Categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4

User Command Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-6

Workspace Command Category. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-6

On/Offline Command Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-8

Disk Command Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-8

Stats Category Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-9

Index

Using This Guide

Congratulations on your purchase of Avid Unity™ MediaNet Release

2.0, a high-performance distributed file system that provides high-capacity shared media storage for a workgroup of connected

systems.

Av id

Who Should Use This Guide

This reference guide is intended for MediaNet system administrators responsible for the setup and day-to-day management of a MediaNet workgroup. You should already have a basic understanding of how to use and manage Windows NT

Server systems.

Before you read this guide, you should already be familiar with the basic MediaNet concepts described in the Avid Unity MediaNet System Overview.

About This Guide

This guide is intended to provide a task-oriented guide to configuration, management, and basic troubleshooting of your MediaNet workgroup.

xii

The Contents lists all topics included in the book which are presented with the following overall structure:

• Chapter 1 provides an overview of the MediaNet configuration process.

• Chapters 2 through 4 introduce the Setup Manager and describe how to use it to configure your MediaNet workgroup parameters and configure your drive hardware as a drive set.

• Chapters 5 through 9 introduce the Administration Tool and describe how you use it to perform initial workspace configuration and day-to-day management tasks.

• The Appendices describe how to manage drive problems and the MediaNet advanced support tools.

Symbols and Conventions

Using This Guide

The MediaNet documentation uses the following special symbols and conventions:

1. Numbered lists, when order is important.

a. Alphabetical lists, when the order of secondary items is

important.

• Bulleted lists, when the order of the items is unimportant.

- Indented dashed lists, when the order of subtopics is

unimportant.

t One arrow in a list indicates a single-step procedure. Multiple

arrows in a list indicate that you perform one of the actions listed.

A note provides important related information, reminders, recommendations, and strong suggestions.

A caution means that a specific action you take could cause harm to your computer or cause you to lose data.

If You Need Help

If you are having trouble using MediaNet, you should:

1. Retry the action, carefully following the instructions given for that task in your MediaNet documentation.

2. Check the documentation that came with your hardware for maintenance or hardware-related issues.

3. Check the Customer Service and News and Publications sections of the Avid Web site at http://www.avid.com for the latest FAQs, Tips & Techniques, Film + Television Update, and other Avid online offerings.

4. Check the Avid Bulletin Board, “Avid Online,” for information on product and user conferences. If you do not find the solution to your problem, you can exchange information with other Avid customers and Avid Customer Support representatives.

5. Contact your local Avid Reseller; in North America, you may contact Avid Customer Support at 800-800-AVID (2843).

xiii

For general information, call your local Avid Reseller; in North America, call the Avid Customer Relations Desk at 800-894-5654.

Related Information

The following documents provide more information about your MediaNet workgroup:

• Avid Unity MediaNet System Overview

You should be familiar with the basic MediaNet concepts described in the Avid Unity MediaNet System Overview before proceeding with this guide.

• Avid Unity MediaNet for Windows Clients Quick Start Card

• Avid Unity MediaNet for Macintosh Clients Quick Start Card

xiv

• Avid Unity MediaNet Site Preparation Guide

• Avid Unity MediaNet Setup Guide

• Avid Unity MediaNet Release Notes

• Avid Products Collaboration Guide

The most recent update of the Avid Products Collaboration Guide is available in the Documentation section of the Avid Customer Service Knowledge Center. To access the Avid Customer Service Knowledge Center, click the Avid Customer Service link at www.avid.com and select Knowledge Center.

MediaNet also provides Help systems that provide complete information about using the Setup Manager, the Administration Tool, and the Monitor Tool.

If You Have Documentation Comments

Avid Technology continuously seeks to improve its documentation. We value your comments about this manual or other Avid-supplied documentation.

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Using This Guide

CHAPTER 1

MediaNet Management Overview

The MediaNet workgroup allows you to centrally manage very large amounts of storage that multiple MediaNet clients can access to share video, audio, and effects media in an intuitive, collaborative workgroup.

This chapter provides an overview of the tasks that you will need to perform, the factors you should consider when configuring MediaNet, and the tools you will use to manage your workgroup.

Topics in this chapter include:

• Management Tasks

• Configuring Your Workgroup

• Management Tools

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Management Tasks

As a MediaNet administrator, you are responsible for:

• Initial setup and configuration of the workgroup — You m ust configure the drive set, one or more allocation groups, workspaces, and user accounts before MediaNet can be used.

• Day-to-day administration — You will probably need to frequently reconfigure MediaNet (for example, by creating, deleting, or resizing workspaces; by creating and deleting user accounts; and by changing access privileges) to accommodate new users and evolving projects.

MediaNet also provides comprehensive monitoring functionality that allows you to check total MediaNet activity as well as that of each connected client.

• Troubleshooting — When problems occur with the storage hardware, the File Manager, or a client, you will need to try and diagnose the problem and, if possible, fix it. MediaNet provides easy-to-understand error messages that inform you of problems in your MediaNet workgroup as well as tools that help you diagnose and fix problems.

Configuring Your Workgroup

Ensuring that the MediaNet workgroup is always configured to optimize workflow in what can be a rapidly changing working environment is the primary responsibility of a MediaNet administrator.

This section provides information that will enable you to make the appropriate decisions to efficiently perform this task.

MediaNet Management Overview

Overall Considerations

The following strategic considerations will determine your priorities when making configuration decisions and trade-offs (possibly impacting more than one aspect of your configuration):

• What is your site type?

In-house and rental editing suites will probably require very different administration requirements, particularly in terms of workspace access restrictions and how often you need to reconfigure workspaces and users.

• Does your workgroup include dual-stream uncompressed

clients?

If so, you will need to set up special hardware and allocation group configurations.

• How large is your drive set and does it include more than one

drive type?

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If your drive set is very large, or has different drive types, you will probably need to assign your data drives to more than one allocation group.

• Will your client users be working on individual projects with

their own media or will they be collaborating on team projects that use the same source media?

These factors affect how you should allocate workspaces and user accounts.

• Is security or ease of access more important at your site?

Individual password user accounts combined with tightly controlled workspace access privileges provide the most security at the cost of restricting user flexibility.

The following sections provide a high-level overview of the configuration implications of your answers to these questions.

Configuring Your Workgroup

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Setting Up and Managing Your Drive Hardware

Setting up your hardware to create a drive set is very straightforward and should only need to be done during the initial setup of your MediaNet installation, unless you want to add or remove drives later.

The most important decision you must make is how many spare data drives to allocate so that they can be rapidly swapped in for faulty data drives. Avid recommends that you allocate at least one spare drive for each drive size in your drive set.

For more information, see Chapter 4.

Assigning Drives to Allocation Groups

MediaNet requires you to assign the data drives in your drive set that you want to be available as storage to one or more allocation groups. Because MediaNet handles the drives in each allocation group as a separate unit, creating multiple allocation groups allows you to:

• Support dual-stream uncompressed clients (also requires a special hardware configuration).

• Break up very large drive sets into smaller units that reduce the scope of data loss in the event of a drive failure in an unprotected environment (see “Data Protection” on page 1-5).

• Efficiently accommodate drives of different speeds and sizes.

For more information about creating and managing allocation groups, see Chapter 6.

Creating and Sizing Workspaces

Because workspaces are virtual rather than physical partitions, they are very easy to create, resize dynamically, and delete to accommodate your workgroup’s needs. This flexibility allows you to tailor your

MediaNet Management Overview

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workspace allocation to accurately meet the current needs of your workgroup. You can reconfigure your workspaces later to accommodate future projects or users because it is not inconvenient or time consuming.

First, you must consider how you want to allocate workspaces. For example, do you want to allocate them to accommodate projects, teams, individual users, or a combination of one or more of these?

Once you have determined how you plan to allocate workspaces, you’ll need to determine how much storage each workspace will require (a function of media duration and, for video, resolution) and allocate space accordingly.

Data Protection

When sizing workspaces in a multiple workspace configuration, you should consider reserving some space rather than assigning all of it immediately. Once space is allocated, it tends to be filled quickly and you might need space later to accommodate a new project or user or to extend or protect an existing workspace. In these situations, it tends to be much easier to use space held in reserve than to take it away from an existing workspace.

When allocating and sizing workspaces, you should also consider whether access restrictions are required and whether protection for data integrity is necessary for each workspace. For more information, see “Data Protection” on page 1-5.

For more information about allocating and sizing workspaces, see Chapter 7.

Protection is a technique that offers high levels of data integrity by ensuring that two copies of media data are written onto different physical drives to avoid data loss in the event of drive failure. This allows workspaces that are protected to be repaired very quickly with no data loss upon drive failure.

Configuring Your Workgroup

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The disadvantage is that protected workspaces use twice as much space as an unprotected workspace. However, because of the data protection and recovery speed that protection offers, Avid recommends that you always protect your workspaces. New workspaces are therefore protected by default unless you specify otherwise in your preferences.

For more information, see Chapter 7.

Access Control (Users and Access Privileges)

User accounts control access to MediaNet and its workspaces. Access privileges associated with the user account determine whether a client user can mount a given workspace and, if so, whether the user has full access (read/write) or read-only access to it.

To determine how you want to set up user accounts and access privileges for your workgroup, you first need to weigh the importance of access control against user inconvenience and administration effort (particularly in a workgroup where users and projects frequently change).

Once you have decided the importance of security, you can decide upon an access control strategy that best meets your needs.

Example strategies include:

• Create a user account for each user.

• Create a user account with appropriate access privileges for each

MediaNet Management Overview

This strategy offers optimum security, allowing each user access to the appropriate workspaces regardless of the MediaNet client at which they are working.

project (multiple users can use the same account simultaneously).

This strategy offers moderate security and convenience, giving users working on each project appropriate access and requiring far less administrative effort than individual user accounts.

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• Create a user account with appropriate access privileges for each

client.

This strategy offers moderate security and convenience, provided that users work at clients that provide access to the workspaces they need to use.

Passwords are optional. If you want to provide users with access to only appropriate workspaces but security is not an issue (that is, you trust users not to use other user’s accounts), you can use any of the previously described strategies without assigning passwords for user accounts.

For more information, see Chapter 8.

Management Tools

MediaNet provides several tools that you will use to configure and perform day-to-day management of your MediaNet workgroup:

• Setup Manager

• Administration Tool

• Monitor Tool

The following sections give an overview of each of these tools.

Setup Manager

You use the Setup Manager to perform storage hardware management tasks, including:

• Creating and managing a drive set

• Specifying drives as data drives or spare drives

• Starting and stopping the File Manager service to perform system

maintenance

Management Tools

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• Adding drives to and removing drives from the drive set

• Performing drive maintenance and error recovery operations

Help button

Figure 1-1 Setup Manager

The Setup Manager runs only from the File Manager. For a detailed overview of the Setup Manager, see Chapter 2.

Administration Tool

The Administration Tool is the primary tool for initial setup and day-to-day administration of allocation groups, workspaces, and users. It also allows you to monitor storage activity. Using the Administration Tool, you can:

• View, create, rename, and delete allocation groups

• Add drives to allocation groups

MediaNet Management Overview

• View, create, rename, resize, protect, and delete workspaces

• View, create, edit, and delete user accounts (with optional

passwords) and assign user access privileges

• Monitor system usage, including total system bandwidth use,

how many MediaNet clients are active, and how much bandwidth each client is consuming

• View a list of error, warning, and informational messages

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Monitor Tool

Figure 1-2 Administration Tool

You can run the Administration Tool from the File Manager or from any MediaNet client, in which case it communicates with the File Manager through the Fibre Channel network.For a detailed overview of the Administration Tool, see Chapter 5.

The Monitor Tool provides low-level performance-monitoring functions. Using the Monitor Tool, you can view:

Management Tools

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• The current status of each drive, including name, number, available storage, percentage of storage used, and the number of affected files, if any

• A list of the workspaces that exist on the MediaNet workgroup

• The status of communications between the File Manager and the

MediaNet clients

• Information on the metadata maintained by the File Manager

• File Manager memory usage

• Counts and service times for MediaNet client requests

You can also use the Monitor Tool to start and stop the File Manager service and to set some advanced MediaNet features, such as clearing the administrator’s password.

To start the Monitor Tool:

t From the File Manager console, click the Start button, point to

Programs, point to AvidUnity, and then click Server Monitor.

The Monitor Tool opens, displaying File Manager Status information and controls.

MediaNet Management Overview

Figure 1-3 Monitor Tool

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For more information about the Monitor Tool, see the tool’s Help system. To access the Help system, click the Help button.

Management Tools

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MediaNet Management Overview

CHAPTER 2

The Setup Manager

This chapter introduces the Setup Manager and describes its basic operations.

To find out how to use the Setup Manager to set general and File Manager failover parameters, see Chapter 3. For detailed descriptions of how to use the Setup Manager to manage and troubleshoot your drive hardware, see Chapter 4 and Appendix A.

This chapter discusses:

• Setup Manager Overview

• Starting the Setup Manager

• Using the Setup Manager in a Failover Configuration

• Starting and Stopping the File Manager Service

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Setup Manager Overview

You use the Setup Manager to set general and File Manager failover parameters, to configure and manage your drive set, and to start and stop the File Manager service. You also use the Setup Manager to add drives and to perform drive maintenance and error recovery operations.

This section provides an overview of the Setup Manager and the operations that you can perform from it.

Drive group list (Click an entry to select a

group to display in the drive list.)

Information area

Figure 2-1 Setup Manager Example Display

Menu bar

Drive list

The Setup Manager

The Setup Manager divides all drives present in the MediaNet workgroup into one of three groups, reflecting their current usage allocations and state. The three drive groups are:

Drive Group Description

Data Drive Set Shows active data drives and spare drives in the drive set.

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Other FibreChannel Drives

Raw Drives Shows raw drives that have been marked for use by the

Shows drives that have not been appropriately initialized for use in the MediaNet workgroup (for example, drives that were previously part of a MediaShare™ F/C installation). These drives may be used for other purposes in your environment.

MediaNet workgroup but that have not been allocated for a specific purpose. Raw drives cannot be used until allocated.

You select the drive group that you want to view by clicking its entry in the drive group list. All the drives in that group then appear in the drive list, which displays the name, size, status, unit number, and other technical information about each drive. You might need to scroll right to see all the information. The drive list supports multiple selections by using standard Windows NT modifiers (Shift+click to select a list of consecutive entries, Ctrl+click to add individual entries).

You access all Setup Manager functions from the various menus in the menu bar.

The information area provides information about the drive set and the status of the File Manager.

To access a comprehensive Help system that provides step-by-step procedures and reference information for all features of the Setup Manager, click the Help button (Question Mark icon) or choose Help Topics from the Help menu.

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Starting the Setup Manager

To start the Setup Manager:

t From the File Manager desktop, click the Start button, point to

Programs, point to Avid Unity MediaNet, and click Setup Manager.

Until you initialize the email error notification service (see “Setting Up Email Error Notification” on page 3-9), the Setup Manager will display the Email Configuration dialog box asking you whether you want to do so each time it starts. Click OK to stop the dialog box from appearing again.

Until you configure your drive set, the Setup Manager information area will contain a message warning you that it is not connected to the File Manager or that the File Manager is not running. This is normal; the File Manager does not come online until you create a drive set.

Using the Setup Manager in a Failover Configuration

If your MediaNet workgroup has a failover configuration with redundant File Managers, one File Manager assumes the active role and the other the passive role when the cluster comes up.

Failover Configuration Guidelines

The Setup Manager

In failover configurations, you should always:

• Stop the passive File Manager before performing any hardware management tasks that involve stopping the File Manager service (such as adding drives to the drive set or when performing a software upgrade).

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