Announced late in 2015 the Archiware P5 Archive app is a revolution for editors who want to control the archive and restore process. No longer the job of the IT Admin, editors can select files or folders on their SAN volume (or anywhere) and send them to the tape archive.
The Archive app is a brilliantly simple app that allows the right-click services action in OS X, or in another words a it’s a GUI app that presents a contextual menu that knows to how to the talk to your P5 Archive server. When the files are safely on tape the original files on the filesystems are replaced with stub files that can be used to start the restore process.
Requirements: Archiware P5 server with the Archive module setup with an Archive plan. Add to that the P5 Archive App which is installed on the clients.
Note: At the moment all archiving goes over the LAN by default, so if you have a fast SAN then you set up the P5 Archive app client settings as “localhost” instead of their actual client name. That means that when it goes to archive the file, the server knows that the files exist on the SAN at a known path (which is the same on the client and the server).
And now for some detailed steps and screenshots.
- Archiving completed projects
Choose the completed project folder and right-click. Select “Archive to P5”.
Note 1: If you want to restore files choose the folder that was archived and right-click. Choose “Restore from P5”.
Note 2: Restoring individual files that have been archived is possible by double-clicking the files with the “.p5a” extension, but it will be much faster to select an entire folder to restore than many individual files.
Note 3: For either archive or restore to work the P5 Archive app needs to be installed.
Note 4: To avoid having a services sub menu keep the contextual-menu items to four.
2. Archiving app status
When you are archiving or restoring files the Archive app will show you the status of your request. It will also show you the status of other jobs running on the P5 server. This is to let you know why perhaps your archive or restore is taking a long time (it’s possibly waiting for access to the tape drive and it currently busy backing up or archiving something else).
The P5 Archive app offers you three operations “cancel job”, “list items” and “get report”. The last two are great when you want to examine a completed job, for example. If you want to find out what files were archived in the particular job choose “list items”.
3. Restoring files
Archived files will have either one of or both of, 1) a”.p5a” file extension and 2) a P5 Archive app icon.
Folders and FCP X project bundles (which are folders) do not get the “.p5a” extension, but FCP X projects have the the icon.
Note 1: Files can also be restored by the admin through the P5 web interface. They can be restored in place or to any other location that is required.
Note 2: On the P5 server jobs that are sent to archive or restored from tape show up as “cli job” with the tapes in use. Actual files or folders involved need to be noted from the P5 Archive app not the P5 web admin console. Otherwise checking the P5 web restore tab will files actually archived (that can be restored).
That’s enough for the quick overview of this great new app. One of the best things in 2015.
For more information on Archiware’s new P5 Archive app check out their website:
DAM SAN 