Ontrack PowerControls

Ontrack PowerControls is an advanced Windows application whose purpose is to help administrators search, retrieve and export data from either Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. The program gives you the freedom to extract information from backups and easily restore it on your computer.

The tool implements an intuitive layout where you are given quick access to a list with the source files. The source files are displayed in an Explorer-like layout. When you select an item from the tree view, the tool reveals additional information about it, such as content type, creation and modification dates.

The Target panel is used for revealing the servers that you are connected to (you may open one or more targets at a time). If the layout looks two crowded and you want to do some cleaning, you may opt for hiding several elements from the GUI, namely toolbar or status bar, and adjusting the split bars.

Ontrack PowerControls allows you to work with a built-in wizard for extracting data from your Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. The wizard offers assistance throughout the entire process and guides you step-by-step.

You can specify the source files (MDF, NDF or LDF), enter the URL of the server you use as a target, and connect using the current Windows credentials, connect as a different Windows users or connect using form authentication (username and password). Plus, you can enter a valid port number in order to use the Agent for Content Transfer Service (ACTS).

What’s more, the application checks if the Remote Blob Store (RBS) is enabled and FILESTREAM is in use. If both are true, you can select the RBS FILESTREAM files for the current database (you may configure multiple providers).

The utility also enables you to enter the URL of the server that is running Metalogix StoragePoint and configure the connection parameters, as well as verify UNC paths used by the content database.

Advanced users may skip the built-in wizard and tweak the dedicated parameters on their own. The source database is displayed in the main window, and you can check out items' metadata.

Ontrack PowerControls allows you to search the source databases for items by different criteria, such as keywords, creators, modifiers, item creation and modification dates. Plus, you can search in one or more content databases, sites, lists, folders or even previous search results, as well as search within file data or attachments.

At the end of the search results, you are given several options to experiment with, as you may open an item’s metadata, open the file in the Search Results, copy and paste content, export an item, save attachments, as well as view previous versions of an item. Last but not least, you can export data from a source file to a local or network drive destination and restore your content (items, lists, folders, and sites) to a live Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Last but not least, you can make the application run the built-in wizard at startup, show warning when no log files are specified, check for duplicate files during the copying process, as well as automatically connect to ACTS.

Ontrack PowerControls proves to be a powerful and efficient application that integrates a decent feature pack for helping you search, copy, restore and export data from Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint platforms. With support for RBS solutions from Metalogix and StorSimple, IT administrators are able to rebuild externalized databases.