IT Professionals: How to Prevent Data Losses and Upset Bosses — Using a Needle

“Oh hell, we’re in trouble. We’ve migrated 2 terabytes of data, and it all worked, except for one thing: Now we have broken links, thousands of them. I have users calling me every 15 minutes and my boss is going nuts!”

This statement, or variations of it with more colorful and NSFW (Not Safe for Work) language, have been uttered by many thousands of IT managers, Sysadmins, and other IT pros during or after a data migration such as migrating to the cloud, to a Content Management System (CMS) like SharePoint, a new data center, a storage area network, or even just upgrading to some new local hardware. This problem also occurs whenever doing a file system reorganization or even if someone just renames some folders or a network drive.

When you move data around, for example, a data migration or folder restructuring on your entire server (or servers) or simply your personal machine, what usually happens to your file links? Excel spreadsheets with vital financial data pulled from other spreadsheets or databases now report: “We can’t update some of the links in your workbook right now.” Adobe InDesign says: “This document contains a link to a source that is missing.” Word files with references to other word or Excel files have red Xs everywhere. Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files have huge white spaces where images should be. CAD files are unable to locate external reference (Xref) files located all over the place. It almost sounds like a contagious virus or disease.

In 2002, LinkTek looked into this problem, heretofore unaddressed with the tools available to IT professionals, and developed the first software application that automatically fixes broken links when files were moved or renamed, LinkFixerPlus^TM. This was replaced, some years later, by LinkFixer Advanced ^TM, the current state-of-the-art product, continually updated with faster response times, and more files types supported.

LinkFixer Advanced is still the only game in town for automatically fixing file links in batch. What’s more, it supports most of the common file types used in business today.

The patented process involves two steps: protecting the links within the files before they’re moved, and then restoring them all automatically after the move. When a pioneering company creates a brand-new technology to solve a problem, sometimes naming it can really be a trick. So LinkTek borrowed two terms from the medical field.

“You want to inoculate my files? Is there an illness going around?” Well, not an illness exactly, but the file links are vulnerable to being broken, and inoculating them protects them from this potential harm, just as the smallpox vaccine did for people in the 1950s (and saved lives).

This has been an interesting topic throughout the years. What does Inoculate mean? What does Inoculation have to do with computer files or file links for that matter?

Well, let’s start by defining “Inoculate”.

If we type the word “Inoculate” in Google, we get the following:

“treat (a person or animal) with a vaccine to produce immunity against a disease.” Hmm… ok…

Let’s try a different source — Dictionary.com. If we type the word “Inoculate” in Dictionary.com, we get the following:

“to implant (a disease agent or antigen) in a person, animal, or plant to produce a disease for study or to stimulate disease resistance.”

So… what does that have to do with files, links or migrations?

What if we told you that LinkFixer Advanced features a way to “implant” or “treat” all your files to produce immunity against broken links? And we’re not talking about simply making them relative or dynamic links. We’re talking about literally implanting something into the metadata of all your files (without modifying their contents or last modified date) that will make them immune to that “virus” — broken links. And that’s where the term Inoculate comes from.

And as to the needle referenced in the title? If you’re apprehensive about needles, don’t worry, there is no real needle, only a virtual one for your files. (And it won’t hurt them a bit.) In LinkFixer Advanced, the button to initiate the inoculate process is a needle. Click here to get a free trial and see it for yourself.

LinkFixer Advanced’s Inoculate command can safeguard all your healthy links in files, allowing them to be automatically fixed when/if they become broken.

Another way to look at LinkFixer Advanced’s Inoculate function is by looking at the analogy of pets and their owners. When you own a pet these days, you can take your pet to the veterinarian to get a chip. That way if your pet were to get lost, anyone that finds your pet can get the chip scanned and immediately locate the pet’s owner. LinkFixer Advanced’s Inoculate command will “chip” all your files. That way, when all the parents (files containing links) lose their children (files pointed to by links) LinkFixer Advanced can immediately locate each other. But this is not the best analogy because while your vet can only inoculate (chip) one pet at a time, LinkFixer Advanced inoculates thousands of files and their links all in one processing run.

And by the way, if you’ve already moved all your files and you’re now experiencing broken links all over the place, LinkFixer Advanced can still help you with that too. For more information Click Here.

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