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About the Siebel File System

The Siebel File System is a shared file system directory or set of directories. The Siebel File System stores document files, Siebel Configurator models, Web template definitions, and other files that are not suitable for database storage. System user preferences are also stored in the userpref subdirectory of the Siebel File System.

For information about setting up and maintaining the Siebel File System, see the Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using and Siebel System Administration Guide.

Siebel File System Recommendations

The following list provides recommendations for dealing with the Siebel File System:

• All of the Siebel Servers must have direct access to the Siebel File System. The only exception to this rule is when a server computer is running a Siebel Document Server only. If the File System Manager (alias FSMSrvr) is disabled on the Siebel Document Server, then it accesses the Siebel File System through the FSMSrvr on another Siebel Server. In all other cases, the Siebel Server must be able to directly access the Siebel File System.
• The Siebel File System can be configured to use multiple directories that exist on separate devices or partitions. Before you configure the Siebel Enterprise, at least one file system directory must exist that you can designate for use by the Siebel File System.
• There are few strict rules for deploying the Siebel File System. Theoretically, the file system can be hosted on any of the server computers in the Siebel Enterprise or on computers in an independent file server farm. For small-to-medium deployments, a common scenario might be to place the Siebel File System on the Siebel Gateway Name Server. Implementations with a large number of attachments might need a dedicated file system computer. Consider using a high-speed RAID disk storage system to increase file system throughput.
• It is strongly recommended that you disable short file-name generation on Windows servers hosting the Siebel File System, because this type of file-naming can cause severe performance impacts once the file system grows to a large size.
• During normal operation of Siebel Business Applications software, it is likely that orphaned files are stored in the Siebel File System and that orphaned records exist in the Siebel database. Periodically run the sfscleanup utility to remove orphaned files from the Siebel File System. This utility is located in the bin subdirectory within the Siebel Server root directory. For information about using this utility, see Siebel System Administration Guide.