The FlexTk file management toolkit provides a large number of advanced multi-stream file copy and rule-based
data migration capabilities allowing one to copy vast amounts of files fast, efficiently and reliably. FlexTk
allows one to copy files including access control lists (ACLs), security attributes, ownership information,
timestamps and file attributes. In addition, the user is provided with a large number of flexible copy
performance tuning and fault tolerance options allowing one to copy data at various speeds, recover failed
copy operations and minimize the potential impact on running production systems.
For more information about expected copy performance refer to:
Performance Review
Frequently used file copy or data migration operations may be customized for user-specific needs, pre-configured
as user-defined commands and executed in a single mouse click using FlexTk's main GUI application or direct desktop
shortcuts. In addition, FlexTk Professional and FlexTk Ultimate provide a command line tool allowing one to execute
user-defined file copy commands from batch files and shell scripts or schedule periodic file copy operations using
a general purpose command scheduler. For more details about user-defined commands refer to the
User-Defined Commands page.
In order to start a simple file copy operation, select one or more files or directories, press the standard 'Ctrl-C'
keyboard sequence, navigate to the destination location and press the 'Ctrl-V' keyboard sequence. If you wish to perform
a regular copy operation using default parameters, just press the 'Copy' button and wait for the operation to complete.
During the copy process, FlexTk will display the copy progress dialog showing the total number of copied files, the total
amount of copied storage space and the copy performance.
Copying vast amounts of data may require significant amounts of time. Sometimes, in order to perform an urgent operation,
one may need to temporary pause a long-running data migration operation. Press the 'Pause' button to temporary suspend an
ongoing file copy operation and press the 'Continue' button to resume the operation. Press the 'Stop' button to cancel
an ongoing file copy operation.
When copying files from/to protected operating system directories or running production systems, some copy operations may
fail due to one or more files locked by the operating system or other running applications. By default, FlexTk logs
non-critical errors in the operation log, which is accessible by pressing the 'Errors' button, and continues the file
copy operation. In addition, FlexTk Professional and FlexTk Ultimate provide the user with advanced fault-tolerance
and recovery options allowing one retry failed copy operations after a designated period of time. For more information
about copy recovery options refer to the 'Advanced File Copy and Data Migration Options' section.
Advanced File Copy and Data Migration Options
In order to open the advanced copy and data migration options dialog, press the 'Advanced Options' button located on the copy
dialog. The options dialog consists of the 'General' tab, the 'Rules' tab, the 'Performance' tab and the 'Error Handling' tab.
The 'General' tab allows one to control the following parameters:
- Overwrite Mode - the overwrite mode may be set to one of the following values: overwrite and continue, overwrite if the source file is newer, skip, and generate a unique file name.
- Copy DACL - this parameter instructs FlexTk to copy discrete access control lists (DACL) from source files to destination files. Take into account that this option requires administrative privileges.
- Copy SACL - this parameter instructs FlexTk to copy security control lists (SACL) from source files to destination files. Take into account that this option requires administrative privileges.
- Copy User/Group - this parameter instructs FlexTk to copy file ownership information from source files to destination files. Take into account that this option requires administrative privileges.
- Copy Timestamp - this parameter instructs FlexTk to copy file access, creation and modification times from source files to destination files.
- Copy Attributes - this parameter instructs FlexTk to copy file attributes from source files to destination files. If this parameter is not set, all files will be created with default attributes.
- Show Progress - this parameter allows one to enable/disable the progress bar on the copy process dialog. Disabling the progress bar when copying large amounts of files will result in better performance and significantly shorter copy times.
- Verify After Copy - this parameter instructs FlexTk to verify each file after completing the copy operation. When this parameter is set, FlexTk will reread each copied file and verify that the destination file is identical to the source file. Take into account that this option will significantly decrease the copy performance and increase the overall copy time.
The 'Rules' tab (FlexTk Ultimate Only) provides the user with the ability to copy files matching one or more user-defined
criteria. All files that are not matching the specified file matching criteria will be excluded from the copy process.
For example, one may wish to copy all documents that were modified during the last month. In order to add one or more file
matching rules, press the 'Add' button. Select an existing file matching rule and press the 'Delete' button to remove the
selected file matching rule. If no rules are specified, FlexTk will copy all the specified input directories and files.
For more information about how to define file matching rules for your specific needs refer to the
File Search Tutorial.
The 'Performance' tab (FlexTk Professional and FlexTk Ultimate) provides the user with the ability to optimize file
copy and data migration operations for user-specific storage configurations and performance requirements. FlexTk is optimized
for multi-core/multi-CPU computers and advanced RAID storage systems and capable of copying files using multiple, simultaneous
data streams. During runtime, FlexTk analyzes copied files and applies different scheduling policies for different types of
files thus maximizing the copy performance and minimizing the copy time. In order to speed up the file copy process, use
multiple copy streams when copying files located on multiple physical hard disks or a RAID disk array.
When it comes to a need to migrate data to/from a running production server or an enterprise storage system a number of
additional factors should be taken into account. A full speed data migration process may have a significant impact on
the performance of the production system reducing quality of service and costing money. In order to minimize the potential
performance degradation, FlexTk provides flexible copy performance optimization options allowing one to control the speed
and therefore the resulting overhead of the data migration process. According to your specific needs, select the 'Full Speed',
'Medium Speed', 'Low Speed' or 'Manual Control' performance mode.
From the beginning, FlexTk was designed for unattended operation and it is capable of copying or moving vast amounts of data
in a highly-effective and fault-tolerant way. When copying data to/from a running production system, some files may be temporary
locked by the operating system or a running application thus preventing them from being accessed. FlexTk provides advanced
fault-tolerance and recovery mechanisms capable of tracking failed copy operations and restarting them after a designated
period of time.
The 'Error Handling' tab (FlexTk Professional and FlexTk Ultimate) allows one to control the following fault tolerance
and copy recovery options:
- Error Retry Count - this parameter instructs FlexTk to retry each failed copy operation for the specified number of times. Sometimes, it is impossible to move or delete a file locked by an application. In this case, the operation may be retried a number of times after a specific time delay. After the specified retry count, all failed operations are added to the operation log and may be reviewed by pressing on the 'Errors' button located on the copy process dialog.
- Error Retry Delay - this parameter specifies the error retry delay (sec) between additional copy attempts. After the specified amount of time, FlexTk will resubmit the previously failed copy operation and try again.
- Max Pending Task - this parameter specifies the maximum number of pending copy tasks. If the maximum number of pending tasks will be reached during a copy operation, FlexTk will suspend the copy process and begin to retry pending operations according to the specified number of retries and the retry delay. After reducing the number of pending tasks to below the specified maximum, FlexTk will automatically resume the copy process.
