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      Tiger Bridge FAQ

      A summary of some frequently asked questions, related to Tiger Bridge and its main features

      1. Global file locking is disabled by default and is configured by file type, because of the additional delay it introduces when opening/closing files. To enable it, you need to open a command prompt in elevated mode (i.e. Administrator) and issue the following command:

      Usage : tiercli config global flock add <file extension> [file_extension]...

      Eg : tiercli config global flock add .doc .xls -> add .doc and .xls extensions

      Additionally, you can remove or display the configured extensions respectively with:

      tiercli config global flock clear .doc -> remove .doc extension

      tiercli config global flock show -> display lock extensions

      Important: Make sure you issue the same command on ALL synced servers.

      Note: Global File Locking mimics the behavior of the local file system. In other words, it provides all the flags for the application to know the file is already open. However, it is up to the application to respect that flag. For instance, Microsoft Word will tell you the file is already open and will only allow read-only while Notepad won’t have the same behavior.


      2. In the case of expired Tiger Bridge license the following happens:

      • Tiger Bridge stops replicating new data.
      • Data already replicated remains available and accessible and can be retrieved manually.
      • Automatic operations are resumed if managed capacity gets back to the free tier limits.

        Note: Operations will resume after your account is in order and your license is properly activated.

      3. Files may get reported as failed if

      • Tiger Bridge failed to upload a particular file to the cloud, despite multiple attempts.
      • Most likely the file was held open for an extended period.

        Note: While the automation has given up, you can manually restart the upload.

      4. Files/folders may get be excluded from replication if

      • You have explicitly excluded them by the global replication policy.
      • They are system files that reside in the following folders:
        • .TemporaryItems,
        • .Trashes,
        • .Spotlight-V100,
        • Recycled,
        • $RECYCLE.BIN,
        • RECYCLER,
        • · .DS_Store files
      • They are regular files that have an OFFLINE flag that was not set by Tiger Bridge.
      • They are files that are encrypted using Windows Encryption (ile properties).

      5. Archive policy considerations

      • Certain public cloud provider (ex: Azure, AWS, and Google) offer “hot” and “cold” (i.e. archive) tiers of storage. Tiger Bridge has the ability to move data between their hot and cold tiers (within the cloud).
      • Once data has been moved to an archive tier, automatic retrieval is disabled (accessing a stub file results in a file access error) due to the usually long associated response time (SLA).
      • You can manually retrieve data from the archive tier, by first rehydrating it to an intermediate tier of the cloud.

      6. Stub files considerations

      • Stub files look and behave like the original file (maintain all attributes, permissions)
      • Stub files free up space locally by removing inactive data locally and by keeping a pointer to the original data in the cloud.
      • Each stub-file will use 1KB on the disk (a 1TB disk can hold up to 1 billion files/folders).
      • When partially retrieving content from a file, the size of stub file will grow according to the content retrieved.
      • Unlike symbolic links (aka symlinks) that redirect to a different location, stub files retrieve data in-place.

      Important: Stub files cannot be created on a SMB or NFS share. As such they are created on the control folder when using NAS as a source.

      • Copying or backing stub files requires special tools. Always test a retrieve after moving or copying stubs to ensure the link have been preserved.

      7. Partial upload considerations

      • When the portion of an existing file is modified locally, Tiger Bridge has the ability to upload only changes to the cloud.
        • In some cases, the amount of data uploaded will be larger than the actual changes to meet the cloud providers’ minimum transfer size.
        •  Many applications “Save” the entire file again instead of just making changes to it. In this case Tiger Bridge has no choice but to upload the entire file again.
      • Partial upload is NOT available when using NAS as a source.
      • When Partial Upload is enabled, multi-threading is disabled, which affects performance.