Maintaining storage area integrity
Content Platform Engine includes tools to monitor the integrity of the content and metadata in your storage areas.
You can use a Consistency Checking job sweep to help maintain the integrity of your storage area. You can use content search engine functions to query or modify the associated storage area statistics. The sweep and search functions provide the following capabilities:
-
Validating storage area metadata by detecting inconsistencies between the metadata in the object store database and files in associated storage areas.
If the object store uses a fixed storage area, validating the existence of the documents that are stored in the fixed storage area. If the documents are not federated, comparing the size of the document on the fixed device with the size recorded for the object in the object store.
Consistency checking does not apply to database storage.
Tip: You do not need to validate a storage area when restoring the object store database if you:- store the content with the metadata in the database
- manage the database backup and restore procedures with tools provided with the database
-
Repairing a replica in an advanced storage area
Replica repair runs as a background task on Content Platform Engine. Availability of this response depends on the settings that you configured on your storage area, specifically the AUTO_REPAIR_ON_RETRIEVAL option on the ContentIntegrityOption constant. For more details see Repairing a replica in an advanced storage area.
-
Generating current information about advanced storage area contents
Use the advanced area counters search functions provided as a part of the Content Platform Engine deployment to extract counters from the area element table of an advanced storage area. For information on configuring and using the advanced storage area search functions, see Viewing current information for advanced storage area statistics.
-
Updating advanced storage area statistics with current information
You can force a correction to the internal counters used to provide the advanced storage area statistics. For a description of how to perform a force update, see Updating advanced storage area statistics.
Additional capabilities are described in Using the Consistency Check job sweep.
When to check the consistency of a storage area
Perform a validate storage area check after any of the following events:
| Event | Result |
|---|---|
| Restoring a storage area from backup media. | Validation detects any missing content or content with out-of-date security settings. |
| Restoring an object store (including the database and file storage areas) from backup media. | Validation determines if there are any documents without corresponding storage-based content, or content with inconsistent security settings. |
| Viewing a document doesn't work when its content is in a storage area. (And users have permission to view the content.) | Validation determines if the content is missing or if the security settings on the content are incorrect. |
| Moving a storage area to another location. | Validation verifies that all content was moved successfully. |
Security requirements
To do a consistency check, you need VIEW_CONTENT access to the objects you check, however, you do not need read permission for the documents stored in the storage area.
By default, object store administrators have access to all objects in the system, which means they can perform the check. If you change the default security settings, you can affect who can run your content consistency checking job sweep.