It amazes me that even in this day and age, file data is often kept statically in a file server even if migrating that data to another file server would be beneficial from a performance, cost and management perspective. The simple reason for this is that file migration is still a painful, disruptive and often a manual process. AutoVirt makes the challenges being faced around transparent Windows file migration a thing of the past. 
Arun Taneja, founder and senior analyst, Taneja Group
AutoVirt Architecture
A Global Namespace provides consistent end user access to networked data
A global namespace is a service in your network that provides referrals from clients to networked storage. AutoVirt’s global namespace is software-only and out-of-band for scalability: once it has completed a referral, it remains out of the path between client and storage. Two identical namespace servers – the AutoVirt minimum configuration – ensure namespace redundancy and high availability.
The AutoVirt global namespace uses the CIFS protocol to interact with your file servers, your clients, and with DNS. When a client requests a file, DNS facilitates resolution to the appropriate storage device. The global namespace acts as an intermediary between client and DNS. With the AutoVirt global namespace in place, client shortcuts refer to the namespace. The namespace is the authority on the location of networked files, and provides the final storage referral with the help of DNS.
AutoVirt data management
AutoVirt's data management policies are configurable through a web-based GUI. These polices are controlled by the AutoVirt policy engine, which manages job scheduling, execution, exception handling, reporting, and e-mail notification. Like the Global Namespace, the policy engine uses the CIFS protocol to communicate with file servers, clients, and DNS.
Data management activity is closely integrated with the Global Namespace. As a layer of abstraction between clients and storage, the namespace is a central location from which client-storage access can be mediated. Policies that affect data location or client access parameters are automatically registered by the global namespace. The integration between namespace and policy engine allows the namespace to seamlessly resolve client requests, in concert with policy engine activity.
Impact: Global Namespace + data management
- The namespace creates a virtual storage pool that allows you to freely manage data saved across devices
- Following data migration, clients are automatically and transparently redirected to the new location of their data. Redirection occurs at the completion of each share migration
- When data unexpectedly becomes unavailable, the Global Namespace can seamlessly failover clients to the replica you designate
- When shares are disorganized, or when users must access a number of different shares, you can use the Global Namespace to reorganize your directory and share structure – without manipulating the underlying physical storage
