Knowledgebase

One license of SpaceObServer covers one installation. SpaceObServer can scan mutiple local, network and cloud paths. So, you can install SpaceObServer on one machine to observe multiple volumes. Because of the performance and the workload of this machine and the size and update intervals of the scanned paths it may be neceesary to have more than one instance running. If you are using SpaceObServer in a clustered environment, you need one license per node you install SpaceObServer on. For the correct usage of SpaceObServer on a clustered environment see this FAQ entry.

The performance of SpaceObServer is influenced most by these factors:

• Latency of the connection to the storage
• Performance of the SQL server
• The total number of file and folders
• Frequency of the scans (daily, weekly, monthly)

The minimum operating system for SpaceObServer is Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, or higher. We recommend at least 4 cores, 8GB or RAM and 200MB of disk space for the SpaceObServer installation.

SpaceObServer needs a SQL Server to store its data, we support Microsoft SQL Server 2012 or higher in all editions, Microsoft SQL Azure, MySQL 8.0 or higher and Firebird 3.0 or higher. In case you install the SQL server on the same machine as SpaceObServer, the system requirements for this machine increase by 32GB RAM, 4 cores and a minimum 4GB of disk space, the database size depends on the size and settings of the scans.

You always need a SpaceObServer (Enterprise or Standard) license as base. This license includes the SpaceObServer user interface for reporting and the SpaceObServer scan service which executes the scans and archives the file system information into a database.

The SpaceObServer Remote Client only includes the SpaceObServer user interface only, without the scan service. You can install SpaceObServer Remote Client on additional machines in your network to generate reports for scanned directory trees, by accessing the data stored in the backend database. You can also use the SpaceObServer Remote Client for remote administration of scans.

Each instance/installation of SpaceObServer Remote Client need to be covered by one SpaceObServer Remote Client license.

Please find more detailed information how to use SpaceObServer in your environment here.

Some database providers may not be installed on a device.

Please visit the following Microsoft page to download the SQL Server Native Client: Download Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Native Client - Latest Servicing Release from Official Microsoft Download Center

Please run the downloaded installer and try to connect to the database again.

DataCentral has access control implemented.

Although, there might be files indexed that are not accessible by some users, DataCentral automatically only delivers search results the specific UltraSearch user has access to.

No. There are no limits regarding amount of files/data that can be indexed as far as we know.

When dealing with very large folders/drives, the infrastructure DataCentral is hosted on could cause performance bottlenecks, which could for example slow down the search in the index.

Usually, you need 1 license to run SpaceObServer and DataCentral on a server + n licenses of UltraSearch Professional for n people that can search the DataCentral indexes.

The amount of data in the indexes and the number of searches is unlimited.

The size of the index varies and depends on many factors:

• the number of actually indeable files (xlsx and txt are indexable, exe is not)
• the size of the files

For an average drive, the required space ranges between less than 0.01% of the target to 1%.

For a very high ratio of textual content, up to 30% of the target size might be necessary, but this is quite rare.

When the connection test in UltraSerach (button "Test connection" in the DataCentral connection configuration settings) does not work, please make sure, that...

• the "SpaceObServer DataCentral" service is running
• the connection between UltraSearch and DataCentral is not blocked by a Firewall / ports are opened. The default port of DataCentral is 5149.

When the connection test in UltraSerach (button "Test connection" in the DataCentral connection configuration settings) works, but the search doesn't, there could be the following reasons:

• The folder you search for has not been scanned and/or index yet by SpaceObServer/DataCentral.
• The authentication fails. A connection between UltraSearch and DataCentral is authenticated to make sure that only documents that can actually be accessed by the user can be found. Some of our customers had success by switching between host name and IP address when connecting UltraSearch to DataCentral.

The speed of DataCentral depends on many factors.

The speed of the indexing of documents depends on:

• the number of actually indexable files (xlsx and txt are indexable, but exe not)
• the size of the files
• the type of the files (txt files are usually faster than xlsx/pdf)
• the hardware (RAM and CPU, incl. the number of cores)

For a small drive, DataCentral can be done within minutes, for larger ones, it can take hours and for very large drives with multiple TB of indexable files (exe files, images, ... don't count), it can even take days. Smaller scans lead to smaller indexes, which can usually be searches through faster.

SpaceObServer shows a progress and an estimation for the remaining time of the indexing in the "Configure scans" window in the "State" column of the scan.

The performance of a search is usually faster than without DataCentral and depends on:

• the number of the files found by the search
• the serach term and its frequency in the index
• the network between the UltraSearch client and the DataCentral server

We aim to execute most of the searches within a few seconds.