Alternative to Shared Drives

by Derrick Story
Network Newsletter for 09/03/2002

Dear Reader,

In his article, "Replace those Shared Drives with Space Drives," Robert Flenner replays a scenario that many of us have experienced in corporate life:

A system administrator sets up a shared drive environment and insists that everyone use it for templates and documents. That is, until the network experiences problems and no one can get to their work. Then, of course, the next mandate is that everyone keep copies of all their files on their hard drive too. And so begins the first step down the path to synchronization hell.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Flenner introduces the concept of the "space drive," which, as he puts it:

"... is an index to content on the network, wherever it resides. It follows the natural flow of information from user to user; however, it does not attempt to force location or permanent ownership of content on a single entity."

Unlike shared drives that sooner or later collapse under their own weight of disorganization, space drives create a foundation for building a collaborative workspace.

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You can find Robert Flenner's article over at ONJava.com. It's a good read and contains much useful information. Might be just the thing you need to implement at work.

Until next week,

Derrick
O'Reilly Network Managing Editor
derrick@oreilly.com

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