Fragmentation problem handled by federal office.

GLENDALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 22, 1995--Disk fragmentation is no longer creating waves at the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Springs, Md.

Five years ago, Janet Burton, an NOAA Computer Systems Analyst, was managing a MicroVAX 2 and VAX 3600. The system supported 25 users who were responsible for processing water-level information for tide prediction and navigational charts.

"The data was brought it, processed and sent out to external users," said Burton. "Numerous files were being created and deleted each day."

According to Burton, the first indicator of trouble was when they found themselves needing to back up and restore disks on an increasingly regular basis.

"There were a couple of times when we couldn't even create new files and the disk wasn't totally full," said Burton. "It wasn't long before we were doing back-up and restore once a week."

Burton conducted an analysis of the system and quickly uncovered the problem. "We simply had too many segmented files on the disk."

File fragmentation is a problem common to all OpenVMS systems. With OpenVMS, space is allocated to a file as close to the beginning of the disk as possible, even if this means splitting the file into multiple segments. The only exception to this is when OpenVMS places a file in spaces created by deleted files, whether or not those spaces are near the beginning of the disk.

The overall result is a progressively slower system struggling to handle the increased I/O traffic caused by the fragmented files.

To handle the situation, NOAA purchased and installed Executive Software's DISKEEPER, an on-line disk fragmenter.

"DISKEEPER really helped," said Burton. "It completely handled the disk fragmentation. We haven't had to do back-up and restore since it was installed."

DISKEEPER was first launched into the OpenVMS VAX market in 1986. The product was designed based on the realization that files on an OpenVMS system are constantly changing -- new files are being created, and existing files are being accessed, updated and extended by a large number of diversified users.

The product was developed to run on-line as a low-priority background job. It carefully rearranges files on a disk so they consist of as few fragments as possible, and attempts to combine free spaces on a disk into a single large contiguous space.

"I liked the fact that once it was started, you didn't have to bother with it. Everything was automatic," said Burton, who these days is responsible for 90 system users and runs DISKEEPER on a VAX 3100, 4200 and 4500. "For as long as it's been running, I've never had any problems with DISKEEPER. From a system's manager viewpoint, it does what it's supposed to do and it's been really easy to use."

Executive Software is located at 701 N. Brand Ave., Glendale, Calif., 91203, and its products are available in 60 countries worldwide. For further information, call 800/829-4357. -0-

NOTE: DISKEEPER is a registered trademark owned by Executive Software International. OpenVMS VAX, OpenVMS Alpha and OpenVMS Clusters are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corp. Copyright 1995 Executive Software International. All rights reserved.

CONTACT: Executive Software, Glendale

Dawn Chaban, 800/829-4357