Configuring File Services
Using the Distributed File System
 Larger enterprises typically use more file servers
 Used to improve network performce
 Reduce bandwidth by keeping traffic local
 Provide users at remote sites with local access to files
 Giving individual departments or workgroups their own
servers.
 Fault tolerance
 Multiple servers can have downfalls as well
 Harder to find files
 Higher cost
 Backup issues
Introducing DFS
 Implements two technologies
 DFS namespaces
 DFS Replication
 Simplify locating files
 Controls amount of traffic over WAN links
 Provides users at remote sites with local file server access
 Configures the network to survive WAN link failure
 Facilitate consistent backups
Introducing DFS contd.
 DFS is a virtual namespace technology that enables
you to create a directory tree that contains references
to shared folders on various file servers on the network
 Instead of browsing through multiple server shares
with DFS a user can browse through a single DFS
namespace instead.
 When a shared file is opened in the DFS it will forward
the request to the server that is actually sharing out
the folder.
Replicating Shares
 Multiple master replication – duplicate copies of a file
are all updated on a regular basis no matter which copy
changes
 For example if a file is duplicated on 4 servers a user can
access any 1 of those 4 and those changes will be
updated on the other 3 copies.
 Data Distribution – access files from local servers
 Load Balancing – distributes requests
 Data Collection –replicates data from remote servers
to central locations where backups can take place.
 RDC conserves bandwidth only transmits modified data.
Configuring DFS
 Install the DFS service
 Stand-alone
 Domain based
 Add folders
 Configure Referral order
Configuring DFS Replication
 Create a replication group
 Each folder must have a replication group
 1 member per target
 Group replication type:
 Full mesh topology
 Hub/spoke topology
 When to replicate:
 Use a % of available bandwidth.
 Only during specified days and times.
You Learned

Planning is a critical part of a file server
deployment. Your deployment plan should
specify how many file servers you need, what
hardware they should have, how you will
configure them, how you will share the server
data, and how you will protect that data.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

Windows Server 2008 supports two hard disk
partition types: MBR and GPT; two disk types:
basic and dynamic; five volume types: simple,
striped, spanned, mirrored, and RAID-5; and
two file systems: NTFS and FAT.

Creating folder shares makes the data stored on
a file server’s disks accessible to network users.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

Windows Server 2008 has several sets of
permissions that operate independently of each
other including NTFS permissions, share
permissions, registry permissions, and Active
Directory permissions.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

NTFS permissions enable you to control access to files
and folders by specifying just what tasks individual users
can perform on them. Share permissions provide
rudimentary access control for all of the files on a
network share. Network users must have the proper share
and NTFS permissions to access file server shares.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

The File Services role includes several role services that
you can choose to install, including Distributed File
System and Services for Network File System. Selecting
individual role services can add extra configuration pages
to the Add Roles Wizard.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

The Distributed File System (DFS) includes two
technologies: DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication,
which can simplify the process of locating files, control
the amount of traffic passing over WAN links, provide
users at remote sites with local file server access,
configure the network to survive a WAN link failure, and
facilitate consistent backups.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

DFS is a virtual namespace technology that
enables you to create a single directory tree
containing references to shared folders located
on various file servers all over the network.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

A namespace server functions just like a file
server except that when a user requests access
to a file in the DFS directory tree, the
namespace server replies—not with the file
itself, but with a referral specifying the file’s
actual location.
Lesson 6
You Learned (cont.)

DFS Replication works in tandem with DFS
Namespaces to provide unified services such as
data distribution, load balancing, and data
collection.

To enable replication for a DFS folder with
multiple targets, you must create a replication
group, which is a collection of servers known as
members, each of which contains a target for a
particular DFS folder.
Lesson 6