FSA access using Apple Mac Clients

[MMcCr]

Hello all,

I have already reviewed the below linky, which is now a little old, detailing the issues arround Apple Mac clients and FSA, along with the recomendation to use the Group Logic ArchiveConnect client on the Mac's

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/using-apple-mac-systems-ev-file-system-archiving

However, I expect this was done for EV8sp3+ - the compatability charts for EV10 show compatability for OSx10.5 & 10.6 as Pending.

Couple of questions - has anyone sucessfully implemented FSA in an environment where the Apple Mac users have used the above client and the success of it?  If it hasnt worked what can be implemented to facilitate FSA in an environment with Mac clients?

Thanks,

Mike

[Darren_Locke · Accepted solution]

While Symantec has not done official certification of ArchiveConnect on later MacOS versions, GroupLogic themselves have. This is still the official way for Mac support with FSA.

Darren

[MMcCr]

OK thanks Darren

[Palinxy]

Hi Mike,

I am currently testing the ArchiveConnect software on a Mac running OSX 10.6.8 and one running 10.7.2.

Our environment is Enterprise Vault FSA version 10.0 on a Windows file server with CFIS.

We are currently working on a couple of issues with ArchiveConnect support that we have encountered, we have noticed that when a Mac user double-clicks on a file or uses the bring online option within Finder the file either will not open or the application says the file is corrupted.  If I use my pc client I can see that the file is online but on the pc too I can not open the file.  Later on when we try again the file opens both from the Mac and the pc.  This is stange behaviour and I have recently modified the recall limit from 20 files in 10 seconds to 100 files in 1 second and restarted the Placeholder service on the file server, I'm waiting on results to see if this was the cause.

There is also a known problem with Acrobat reader files that have been archived when a using AR 10.x and later versions which use a protected mode this needs to be disabled.  This also gave us problems.

Hopefully I'll have some more updates to post shortly.

Regards

Paul

[Palinxy]

Problem still occurs trying to open the file from the Mac first to bring the file online.  If I open the file first from the pc to bring it back online then I can open the file on the Mac.

Waiting for feedback from ArchiveConnect support.

May need to use pass-thru recall feature? Not sure as this stage.

[MMcCr]

Thanks for the info Paul, hopefully you'll get things sorted out.  In the meantime I've not even received the link for the software or been able to download it - even after speaking to one of thier pre-sales people, concerned that they're not exactly the most proffesional outfit (but those are only my first impressions).

Be interesting to see what the resolutiuon turns out to be though, good luck with it all and let us know the outcome!

Cheers,

Mike

[Palinxy]

Hi Mike,

The problem appears to be with the Mac OSX versions we are using, see the url below for details.

http://support.grouplogic.com/?p=3693

The solution would be to also use ExtremeZ-IP (with ArchiveConnect) also from GroupLogic which allows the Mac client to use it's native Apple File Protocol (AFP) instead of Windows SMB/CIFS protocol.  This is what Symantec seem to suggest you use.  Otherwise upgrade all the Mac OSX to 10.8.2.

I will look at trialing ExtremeZ-IP and see how happy the Mac users are after!

I also had problems getting an evaluation version to test, they never got back to me either.  I finally contacted a local reseller and got hold of a copy very quickly.

Check here for a list of resellers

http://www.grouplogic.com/partners/locate-reseller.html

Regards

Paul