1. Reclaim capacity
Cleanly reclaim 30-40% of the content of your storage devices ?move or delete obsolete files, media files, illegal files...

2. Control user behavior
Identify an acceptable level of usage and allocate this space to your users ?use hard controls to prevent growth or soft controls simply to raise awareness...

3. Involve users
Make your users responsible for the storage they use ?send them interactive reports on their largest and oldest files, their media files and duplicate files...

4. Plan for the Future
Make accurate decisions about the future of your storage infrastructure ?view growth rates, projected exhaustion dates and cost forecasts...

The benefits of such SRM strategies are always counted in both cost and time savings. Reduced costs and simplified administration are the two key reasons why Northern has a 28,000 strong customer base, a community that includes such demanding companies as Microsoft, Boeing, ABN Amro, FujitsuSiemens, U.S. Army and AT&T.

At a more technical level Northern Storage Suite is comprised of five key areas of functionality, each offered through a dedicated workspace:
Storage Reporter - Identifying usage patterns, trends and forecasts
Storage Assistant - Automated clean-up, scheduled replication, uploading, etc.
Quota Server - Controlling data quantities at directory, group and user levels.
Storage Portal - User reports showing largest, oldest, duplicate and media files.
Storage Chargeback - Billing and reporting to spread cost awareness.

Each of these feature sets offer an extensive depth of functionality within a specific focus area and individual features can be applied to achieve valuable tactical results. Storage quotas can be used to prevent directories from exceeding a specific size for example, or binary file-type reports can be used to identify users who are renaming unwanted files.

As individual features Northern Storage Suite offers the tools required to resolve specific storage management issues. As a holistic and intelligent solution Northern Storage Suite offers an efficient method of resolving the most challenging technical and managerial issues associated with storing user-generated data; simplified administration and reduced costs.