Exercise 2: Dealing with Stale Data

In this lesson, you will leverage FSRM to set up an automatic monthly Expiration job that removes data that has not been modified in 10 years and to notify users and administrators via email at least 30 days before expiration that their files will be removed.

Stale data is data that is no longer in use, is not required for business purposes, and is taking up space needlessly. A large amount of the data, stored in organizations, is stale. FSRM provides a mechanism to identify this data and deal with it called Expiration. Expiration is an activity that takes files out of the control of the user and puts it into the control of the administrator. The administrator could then backup those files and delete them off the server.

Part 1: Dealing with Stale Data

1. In FSRM, select File Management Tasks, and click Create File Management Task in the Actions pane.

   Figure 2

   Note:

    This opens the Create File Management Task dialog box.
2. In the Name text box, enter Expire Stale Data for the new task.

3. Under Scope, add the following directory by using the Add button:

   C:\Server 2008 R2 Labs\File System Classification Infrastructure\Data\Shares\Users
   Note:

    More directories can be added and all files in the listed folders and their subfolders will be subject to the expiration task.
   Figure 3

4. Click on the Action tab:

   Figure 4

5. Select File Expiration from the dropdown box labeled Type:

   Figure 5

6. Select the following directory to expire files to in the Expiration Directory box. This should be a directory that users do not have access to:

   C:\expired
   Note:

    If the directory does not exist, please go ahead and create it.

7. Click on the Notification tab:

   Figure 6

8. Click the Add button.
   Note:

    The Add Notification dialog box will show up.

9. In the Generate notifications when task action will be executed in (days) text box, enter 30:

   Figure 7

   Note:

    This will be the minimum number of days before the action is performed that the user will be notified of the file management task.
10. From the E-mail Message tab, select the Send e-mail to the following administrators checkbox.

11. Select the Send e-mail to the user whose files are about to expire check box:

    Figure 8

12. Click OK to save the notification and exit the Add Notification dialog box.

13. Click the Condition tab:

    Figure 9

14. Select the check box next to the text Days since last modified and enter the number 3650 (equivalent to approximately 10 years) into the text box next to it:

    Figure 10

    Note:

     This will result in the file management task only being applied to files that have not been modified for 3650 days.

15. Click on the Schedule tab:

    Figure 11

16. Click Create
17. In the Schedule dialog box, click New.
    Note:

     This displays a default schedule set for 9:00 A.M. daily.

18. Select Monthly from the drop down list:

    Figure 12

    Note:

     This sets up the schedule to run on the 1st day of every month at 9:00 am.
19. Click OK to close the Schedule dialog.
20. Click OK to close file management task dialog.
21. Click Yes on the dialog that appears letting you know that the File Management Task will expire any files that match the conditions on first execution without getting a chance to notify the owners. To prevent this, the condition tab has the field Effective starting which indicates when the File Management Task will actually start to act on files.
22. Open an explorer and navigate to:

    C:\Server 2008 R2 Labs\File System Classification Infrastructure\Data\Shares\Users
23. Open another explorer and navigate:

    C:\expired

24. In FSRM, right click on the Expire Stale Data File Management Task you just created and select Run File Management Task Now:

    Figure 13

25. Select Wait for task to complete execution and click OK

26. Inspect the generated report for files affected by the File Management Task and note the new directory in C:\expired:

    Figure 14

    Note:

     All files contained within, used to be in ‘C:\Server 2008 R2 Labs\File System Classification Infrastructure\Data\Shares\Users’. Note that some files in ‘C:\Server 2008 R2 Labs\File System Classification Infrastructure\Data\Shares\Users’ were not moved.