As administrators, in Pro/INTRALINK 3.4 and earlier, you probably learned how Pro/INTRALINK managed the metadata inside of Oracle and the file content in external vaults maintained by the fileserver(s). After you implemented a backup strategy, there wasn't much more that you needed to think about unless your vaults started to run out of space. This was an extremely powerful bit of architectural flexibility, and, thankfully, Pro/INTRALINK provides that and much more flexibility in the way vaulting of object content can be configured.

External vaulting is the alternative to storing the content of your files in Oracle's Binary Large Objects (BLOBs). By using an external vault, the processing and I/O required on Oracle is minimized to metadata only and the process can occur more efficiently. Especially for CAD Documents, which are traditionally very large files, external vaulting can greatly improve performance.

Through the Site > Utilities > External Storage Administrator, select the Vault Configuration icon. Within the folder structure, do the following:

• Create a new host for the external vault, if necessary
• Create the new vault providing it with a unique name
• Create a new Folder, assigning it to the new Vault
• Select the vault and Object>Mount

Figure 1 - Mounting a new vault

Next, through the External Storage Administrator, launch Vault Configuration Rules. Within the Vault Configuration Rules, setup a new rule at the /User domain for EPMDocuments at each Life Cycle state used for CAD Documents and associate this to the newly defined vault or the existing defaultcachevault vault. Setting up the vaulting rules at the /User domain will ensure that the temporary files created during upload and check in are vaulted externally, as opposed to temporarily loading them into BLOBs only to be moved later.

Figure 2 - Defining Vaulting Rules

Figure 3 -Vaulting Rules

Note: This process should be repeated for each Life Cycle state that is used by CAD Documents. This method is preferred over setting one vaulting rule for All life cycle states due to system performance.

You will then want to set up similar vaulting rules at the Administrative Domains corresponding to the Products and Libraries that you want to vault externally.

Forcing Content to Vault

For a simpler architecture where performance optimization is the ultimate goal, Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 can be configured to force all vaultable content into a single vault both during the upload and check in actions and then for permanent vaulting. This configuration minimizes any processing or I/O required to move the content from one vault to another, but hinders your ability to administer vaults based upon different domains or life cycle states.

You can enable the Forcing of Content to Vault by setting the following value in the wt.properties file (using the xconfmanager):

wt.fv.forceContentToVault=true

If you already have content vaulted in your Pro/INTRALINK system, refer to the Windchill System Administrator's Guide Forcing Content to Vault section for specific details.

Closing Thoughts

Be aware that the external vaults are just as important piece of your company's Intellectual Property as is the Oracle database and the LDAP directory. As such, you must ensure that all master and content cache vaults are backed up as primary data stores. Additionally, it is highly recommended that you create your vaults on disks that are mirrored and striped through a RAID 0+1 array to optimize performance and minimize the risk involved with a disk failure.

Finally, setting up external file vaults is just the first step in preparing a robust Pro/INTRALINK environment. There is much more that is possible through replication and local uploads. I will start to get into that world next time.