Zimbra Suite Plus/Zimbra HSM Plus/Hierarchical Storage Management




Zimbra HSM Plus - Hierarchical Storage Management technique

The Hierarchical Storage Management technique

HSM is a data storage technique that moves data between different stores according to a defined policy.

The most common use of such technique is the move of "older" data from a faster-but-expensive storage device to a slower-but-cheaper one on the following premises:

  • Fast storage costs more.
  • Slow storage costs less.
  • "Old" data will be accessed much less frequently than "new" data.

Thus said, the advantages of the HSM technique are clear: Lowering the overall storage cost, since only a small part of your data needs to be on a costly storage, improving the overall user experience.

Stores, Volumes and Policies

Dealing with the HSM technicque requires a clear understanding of some related terms:

  • Store: a generic term to describe a place where data is stored.
    • Primary Store: The "fast-but-expensive" store where all your data is initially placed
    • Secondary Store: The "slow-but-cheap" store where "older" data will be moved
  • Volume: the physical representation of the notion of Store. A volume is a distinct entity (path) on a filesystem with all the associated properties.
  • Policy: A rule that determines what data will be moved between the volumes.

Zimbra HSM Plus: HSM for Zimbra

The Zimbra HSM Plus module allows you to use the HSM technique on your Zimbra Open Source Edition or Network Edition server.

With the Zimbra HSM Plus module you can:

All of this operations can be done both through the Zimbra Suite Plus Administration Zimlet and the Zimbra Suite Plus CLI.

Running Zimbra HSM Plus on Zimbra Network Edition

Unlike the Open Source Edition, Zimbra Network Edition includes its own HSM system, however Zimbra HSM Plus includes some enhancements and features like volume migration which makes more interesting to use Zimbra HSM Plus

While Zimbra's HSM and the Zimbra HSM Plus are not incompatible per-se, there are some basic measures to be observed in order to avoid the two components to "step on each other's feet":

  • Zimbra's HSM and Zimbra HSM Plus share the same policy, so you won't be able to configure different policies for the two components.
  • Don't run Zimbra's own `zmhsm` command, either manually or through scheduling, when Zimbra HSM Plus's `doMoveBlobs` operation is running.
  • Zimbra's HSM and Zimbra HSM Plus share the same volumes and "current" settings, so you won't be able to apply the same policy to different stores by running the two components one after the other.

To enable Zimbra HSM Plus on Zimbra NE run:

 zxsuite powerstore setProperty ZxPowerstore_EnableHsmOnNe true

Zimbra Suite Plus Resources

Here you can find useful resources for your Zimbra Suite Plus environment



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