Would you like to receive a notification when you’re running low on storage capacity for user storage or for project folders? You can set corresponding quotas on the Cortado server. Then you’ll be ready to give your users a timely warning when they’re about to reach the storage limit.
Aim
This How-To is about setting up quotas with email notification. You’ll find out here how to define storage quotas for User Storage and for the project folders. We’ll also show you how to set up notification emails that will be sent before the designated quotas are used up. This will help to guard against storage issues and thus improve the reliability of the Virtual Data Rooms and access to files.
Implementation
For the quota setup you will require the File Server Resource Manager role service. With the help of this tool, quotas can be set up and email notification parameters defined.
Adding a server role
Note! Please note that internal projects will be stored on the Cortado server and external projects on the proxy server. So if you want to keep an eye on projects, set up the quotas both on the Cortado server, as well as on the proxy server. If you want to monitor the storage quotas solely for the User Storage, the quotas only need to be set up on the Cortado server.
- Open the Server Manager on the Cortado server.
- Select Manage→ Add Roles and Features (arrow in illus.).
- Then select File and Storage Services→ File and iSCCI Services→ File Server Resource Manager (arrow in illus.).
Note! Restart the Cortado server now.
Creating a quota template (optional)
Before you set up a quota, it makes sense to create your own templates and adapt them to particular requirements.
- Open the File Server Resource Manager either via the Server Manager or the MMC.
- Select the Quota Templates directory (left arrow in illus.) and then Create Quota Template (right arrow in illus.).
You can now copy content from pre-existing templates into this mask to be adapted.
- Select a template and make changes according to your needs.
- Give your template a name and add a description.
- Under Space limit determine the actual storage limit and specify whether this is to be a Hard Quota or a Soft Quota. A Hard Quota would interrupt uploads, or prevent large files from being saved, whereas a Soft Quota would allow this.
- Under Notification thresholds, specify what should happen if a user approaches the limit.
- Specify when a notification email should be sent.
- To do this, click on Add (lower arrow in illus.).
- In the E-mail Message tab you will find several simple mail templates that can be used for notification emails to administrators.
- In the Command tab you can specify that for every Warning a Powershell script should be executed. For instance, you can determine here that a user who reaches a quota will receive an email.
- If you want to use scripts, set the path to the respective scripts for the various warning levels.
- Finally, click OK to confirm. Now the template can be used to set up a quota.
Setting up quotas
- Now, in File Server Resource Manager select Quota→ Create Quota (arrow in illus.).
- Under Quota path, select, for example, the path to the project folder (upper arrow in illus.).
- In order to define the maximum allowable size for the whole project folder on your Cortado server, set a path specific quota. To do this, select Create quota on path (middle arrow in illus.).
- However, if you want to set the maximum size for the individual projects, select instead the Auto apply template and create quotas on existing and new subfolders option (middle arrow in illus.). The quota then applies to all subfolders that exist in this path, or that will be created there (in our case, the individual projects). In this way a notification email can be sent specifically to the user who is about to reach the limit.
Note! For data protection reasons, the subfolders in the User Storage and in Projects are not named after the actual users or the projects. At present, this results in limitations regarding the value of the notifications. That means that notifications sent to you as administrator only state the cryptic folder name and not the user name. It is currently not easy to determine which individual user is infringing on the quota.
- Additionally, select the template that you created in the last step (lower arrow in illus.).
- Now you can also repeat these steps for User Storage.
Setting up email notifications
- For the automatic email notification for quotas to function the mail server must firstly be specified.
- Under File Server Resource Manager select Action→ Configure Options (arrow in illus.).
- Here you enter the server name or the IP address of the mail server (upper arrow in illus).
- Also enter the administrator’s default email address (lower arrow in illus.).
