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AvePoint SharePoint Solutions for File Share Management

AvePoint SharePoint Solutions for File Share Management

Dealing with Unstructured Data & Your Microsoft®SharePoint® Environment

AvePoint File Share Management

What is Unstructured Data?

On-Boarding, Enterprise Features, Fully Integrated

The Simple Truth: Organizations have large volumes of unstructured legacy data tied up in file shares, which have notoriously poor content management capabilities for search, permissions, metadata, and remote access.

The Problem: Organizations have various types of content on their file servers and have difficulty determining what is necessary for their specific business initiatives, and what should be decommissioned or archived according to defined retention policies. The overall time taken to remove unstructured content from a structured database is inefficient, resulting in longer index times and slower response to SharePoint end-users.

The Solution: Determining what the main issues are regarding your file shares, defining the best-suited options, and embarking on the avenue to the most optimal solution for your unstructured data with AvePoint.

Wikipedia: Search Business Analytics: AvePoint's Interpretation:
Unstructured Data (or unstructured information) refers to information that either does not have a pre-defined data model and/or does not fit well into relational tables. Unstructured information is typically text-heavy, but may also contain data such as dates, numbers, and facts as well. This results in irregularities and ambiguities that make it difficult to understand using traditional computer programs as compared to data stored in fielded form in databases or annotated in documents. Unstructured data is a generic label for describing any corporate information that is not in a database. Unstructured data can be textual or non-textual. Textual unstructured data is generated in media like email messages, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, collaboration software, and instant messages. Non-textual unstructured data is generated in media such as JPEG images, MP3 audio files and Flash video files. Unstructured data is characterized as non-relational data - e.g. Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) - that when uploaded into SharePoint, is stored by default with the platform's SQL Server database.

AvePoint's File Share Solutions help guide your organization toward the best option for dealing with unstructured data. DocAve's File Share Navigator, Connector, and Migrator products will provide you with the most appropriate alternative to dealing with file shares while simultaneously optimizing your SharePoint environment and promoting SharePoint compliance & governance, both on premises or in the cloud.

Making an Initial Investment in SharePoint with DocAve File Share Navigator

On-Boarding, Enterprise Features, Fully Integrated

For organizations looking to drive SharePoint adoption, DocAve File Share Navigator allows users to easily view and access large files, rich media, and other file share content through SharePoint with familiar Windows Explorer-like controls. By eliminating costly and time consuming migration projects of File Share Content into SharePoint’s SQL Server® content databases, File Share Navigator helps organizations streamline the cutover to SharePoint and minimize productivity disruptions.

With File Share Navigator, organizations will now have access to SharePoint's enterprise document management features such as versioning, workflows, and alerts, but can:

  • Continue to allow interaction with files directly on the file share and preview files before downloading
  • Expose large files and rich media via list links, including files more than 2 GB, into SharePoint without violating Microsoft support contracts to truly consolidate access to all enterprise-wide content.
  • Avoid migration of content into SharePoint & stream content direct from a file share to end users
  • Access file shares remotely without needing a Virtual Private Network (VPN)
  • Avoid complexities of external/remote BLOB storage EBS/RBS & support additional file types and files more than 2GB
Introducing DocAve File Share Navigator 3.0

Learn how AvePoint can help integrate
File Share Content into SharePoint

Supporting a Maturing Platform with DocAve Connector

On-Boarding, Enterprise Features, Fully Integrated

As SharePoint deployments evolve, so will organizational requirements for enhanced document management and collaboration on enterprise-wide content. DocAve Connector exposes File Share content to all of SharePoint's enterprise-wide document management features, allowing organizations to:

  • Use SharePoint to manage and display file share content in SharePoint document libraries
  • Automatically provision and connect file share folders in bulk
  • Avoid costly and time consuming migration projects while freeing up valuable SQL Server database space
  • Have full integration with all SharePoint collaboration and management tools, including workflows, auditing, versioning, full text search, and alerts
  • Utilize SharePoint connections to network addressable file shares or cloud-based storage systems with full DocAve platform integration
Connect existing cloud or file-based content to SharePoint

Connect existing cloud or file-based
content to SharePoint

Consolidating File Share Content in SharePoint with DocAve Migrators

On-Boarding, Enterprise Features, Fully Integrated

DocAve Migrators facilitate the consolidation of all enterprise-wide content on SharePoint, so organizations can decommission file shares or other legacy document management systems in order to streamline content and IT management. By utilizing DocAve to migrate to the latest version of SharePoint, organizations can:

  • Scan source content prior to migration to detect any illegal characters, user permissions, user names, user domains, and other legacy elements that must be mapped in order to migrate successfully into SharePoint
  • Selectively migrate content according to business needs with granular content selection and customizable filtering based on content properties
  • Perform test runs to identify content included in migration plans
  • Keep network bandwidth resources optimized by utilizing full and subsequent incremental migrations, only migrating content that has been updated since the last migration
  • Minimize disruption to end-users by keeping source and destination environments in sync with customizable scheduling, allowing users to continue work on source environments until SharePoint 2010 is approved for roll-out
  • Migrate online over existing networks, or "offline" to securely migrate data across firewalls
  • Quickly take advantage SharePoint 2010 features and capabilities such as Managed Metadata by mapping existing metadata into Term Stores
  • Ensure migration projects are executed according to organizational timetables by viewing and tracking migration project status through detailed job reports, and re-prioritizing migration jobs as necessary

Next Steps

  1. For SharePoint Optimization Best practices, read AvePoint's Proven Practices for Optimizing SharePoint Storage Management white paper or for supplemental reading, try the blog Unstructured Data, the Achilles Heel of SOA.
  2. Try one or all of AvePoint's File share Solutions FREE for 30 days by visiting our Downloads page.
  3. Contact a representative for a personalized demonstration or for pricing information here.
AvePoint File Share Management