DFS Namespace - Noob question?
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I am attempting to setup a stand-alone DFS Namespace to alleviate some of the growing pains of ever increasing data requirements at our facility. Essentially what I would like to do is setup this DFS Namespace on the current server (Server 1, 12TB), then whenever the "arbitrary for now" storage threshold is met, stand up another server (Server 2) and begin having it's storage used.
I'd like to be able to have the namespace root match the share location name of how Server1 is currently setup, so DataShare (below), so the transition is transparent to end users.
I'm in the testing phase on a couple servers (DFSN role is installed on both) I've stood up, but the documentation seems very scarce for my type of situation and I'm stuck.
The current setup is just Server1, and working with two of our development server's folder targets combine as one under the namespace root folder "target/alias" has me stuck. Is everything for this doable from the DFS Management console, or are some of the setup/configuration steps required to be done via command line?
Server1
--DataShare
---Userfolder1
---Userfolder2
---Userfolder3
---etc...data threshold met, stand up Server2 nowServer2 (hypothetical)
--DataShare
---Userfolder4
---Userfolder5
---etc...
- Edited by KarsonVM Thursday, January 02, 2014 2:32 PM
Question
Answers
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So this is a standalone DFS Namespace or if you have an active directory domain you can create a domain based namespace.
Standalone each server name would be the start of the unc path like \\server1\Datashare etc.
A domain based makes things even easier in that the shares would be \\domain.com\Datashare that could have multiple links for userfolder1, userfolder2 etc
Adding new user folders is as easy as adding a new link and wouldn't matter if it was on server1 or server10, your users would only have to go to a single namespace.
So for a more exact answer to your question think of target as Server\share underneath the share you put links to real shares that you want to appear as targets. DFS Namespace is really a way to group shares underneath a common location take this example below - user1 maps to \\server1\datashare\user1 and user2 maps to \\server2\datashare\user2
The purpose of creating a namespace is to get away from server names as beginning points for shares - so if simplicity is the goal I would create one dfsnamespace and use that to create shares to however many servers based on datagrowth is necessary.
Another benefit is when it comes time to add a server you can create the share on the new server and move one or more of these shares to the new server, update the link over night and when the user comes in in the morning they have no idea the data is in a different location.
When browsing the network even to the fictitious shares I created it should still display the links I created as below:
Then it becomes more of a security related issue if a particular folder is inaccessible.
Also I did this example directly from the gui
- Edited by BradHeldMicrosoft employee Saturday, January 04, 2014 6:08 AM
- Marked as answer by Mandy YeModerator Monday, January 13, 2014 9:44 AM
All replies
-
So this is a standalone DFS Namespace or if you have an active directory domain you can create a domain based namespace.
Standalone each server name would be the start of the unc path like \\server1\Datashare etc.
A domain based makes things even easier in that the shares would be \\domain.com\Datashare that could have multiple links for userfolder1, userfolder2 etc
Adding new user folders is as easy as adding a new link and wouldn't matter if it was on server1 or server10, your users would only have to go to a single namespace.
So for a more exact answer to your question think of target as Server\share underneath the share you put links to real shares that you want to appear as targets. DFS Namespace is really a way to group shares underneath a common location take this example below - user1 maps to \\server1\datashare\user1 and user2 maps to \\server2\datashare\user2
The purpose of creating a namespace is to get away from server names as beginning points for shares - so if simplicity is the goal I would create one dfsnamespace and use that to create shares to however many servers based on datagrowth is necessary.
Another benefit is when it comes time to add a server you can create the share on the new server and move one or more of these shares to the new server, update the link over night and when the user comes in in the morning they have no idea the data is in a different location.
When browsing the network even to the fictitious shares I created it should still display the links I created as below:
Then it becomes more of a security related issue if a particular folder is inaccessible.
Also I did this example directly from the gui
- Edited by BradHeldMicrosoft employee Saturday, January 04, 2014 6:08 AM
- Marked as answer by Mandy YeModerator Monday, January 13, 2014 9:44 AM
