Does Vault support multiple Vault Servers using the same Filestore?

Autodesk Support

Nov 20, 2023

Products and versions covered

Issue:

You would like to know if Vault supports multiple Vault Servers using the same Filestore?

Environment:

Vault Professional. Only Vault Professional supports remote filestores.

Solution:

Avoid connecting multiple Vault Servers to the same filestore as this is not supported and can lead to files being deleted unexpectedly.

User-added image

Why would files be deleted unexpectedly? Once a day, a background subroutine runs on each ADMS called the Vacuum Cleaner. When a user deletes a file from the Vault filestore, it will be immediately deleted from the Database. But it will not be deleted from the filestore at that time. It will remain in the filestore until the Vacuum cleaner runs. The Vacuum Cleaner will scan the Filestore for files that are not listed in the database. If the Vacuum Cleaner discovers a file in the filestore that is not listed in the database, it will delete it.

Imagine a user checks a file into "ADMS1". "ADMS1" puts that file into its filestore. At this point in time, the Database knows the file is located in "ADMS1" but until it is replicated it will not exist in "ADMS2". If the Vacuum Cleaner runs on "ADMS1", the file will not be deleted. If the Vacuum Cleaner runs on "ADMS2", it will find the unexpected file and delete it. When a user logs into ADMS1 and tries to get that file they will be unsuccessful because it was delegated by ADMS2.

One possible solution to this is to ensure that Filestore replication between ADMS1 and ADMS2 is running regularly. That means the database is updated regularly. But, this introduces a risk. The risk is if there is a power or network problem on either site. If Filestore replication is not working for some reason, there is the possibility that files could be permanently and unexpectedly deleted from the filestore.

Products:

Vault Professional;

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