Introduction

In today’s working environments, data centers, and corporate networks, the need for high levels of data storage keeps growing exponentially. The costs of storage may decrease over time, but certainly not quickly enough, and that causes a major increased cost for the storage of your data.

The huge amount of files combined with the increased regulations and data leakage is a cause of increasing risk concerns for organizations. These files are very frequently kept in storage because of a lack of control and proper classification of their data. Making multiple copies of out-dated files that are no longer valuable to a company has become very common, and due to a lack of classification and organization these files may be copied over and over through multiple systems without being used for years. Organizations need to get insight into their files to help them manage their data more effectively, reduce costs and mitigate risks.

Today there are a lot of tools that are trying to address the problem, but now Windows Server 2008 R2 has become a great platform for helping partners and customers to provide solutions that reduce cost and risk for storage, all right out of the box.

Running a core version of Windows Server 2008 R2 also makes it more secure than it already is. The attack surface is greatly reduced when running a core version of Windows Server 2008 because a successful attack usually requires a security hole, and with fewer elements installed, there are fewer holes to exploit.

File classification is a key part of performing the organization of the stored files; but your classification needs may extend further than a file-location based solution. It may be required to classify files in terms of format and content. Microsoft partners may want to create custom classification patterns for their own file formats. This is why the classification infrastructure has been extended, and it now includes interfaces that allow developers to implement rules. Windows Server 2008 R2 will use these rules to automatically classify files, to trigger tasks based on those classifications, and to create reports in a variety of formats.

The File Classification Infrastructure (FCI) and File Management Tasks are controlled through the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM). FSRM is a feature of the File Services role in Windows Server 2008 R2. It can be installed as part of the File Services role, using Server Manager. After you install the role service, you can use the File Server Resource Manager Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to use File Server Resource Manager.

Note: FCI is exposed thru FSRM. FCI is used to:

1. Define file classification properties.
2. Define automatic classification rules and triggers.
3. Enable custom extensions via API’s available with the Windows 7 SDK.