The Basics of the Windows Server 2008 Distributed File System (DFS)
For those of you who are not using Distributed File System (DFS) I would really encourage you to have a close look at what it is, and consider the value it will add to the management of your company`s file system.
I`ve found this excellent blog post by Jose Barreto (Senior Program Manager with the File Server Foundation team) called “The Basics of the Windows Server 2008 Distributed File System (DFS)” (Yes, I did copy the blog post title
)
It`s a best practice to set up DFS for managing the file system, and I always encourage my clients to implement this for the following main reasons:
-Unified file structure (\\domain.local\Share-root) for file shares
-Future file server replacements will be transparent to users and applications
-Replication (WAN-scaling and redundancy)
DFS links (copied from Jose`s post):
TechNet on DFS
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753479.aspx
DFS Step-by-Step Guide for Windows Server 2008
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732863.aspx
DFSUTIL overview
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782897.aspx
DFS Step-by-Step Guide for Windows Server 2003 R2
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737358.aspx
DFS FAQ (from Windows Server 2003 R2)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/dfsfaq.mspx