Module 11:Designing Files Services

and DFS in Windows Server® 2008

Module Overview

• Designing File Services

• Designing Distributed File System

• Designing File Server Resource Manager Configuration

Lesson 1: Designing File Services

• Components of a File Services Design

• SMB Enhancements in Windows Server 2008

• Components of DFS

Components of a File Services Design

Component Description

Failover clustering

• Provides high availability

Distributed file system (DFS)

• Provides high availability and geographic distribution

File system resource manager (FSRM)

• Provides file storage management

Access-based enumeration

• Limits user view of file and folder to those which they have permissions to access

WAN acceleration

• Speeds up user access to files over WAN links

SMB 2.0 • Increases file sharing performance

SMB Enhancements in Windows Server 2008

SMB 2.0:

• Is supported by Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

• Provides better performance over WAN links and VPNs

• Recovers better from short interruptions in network availability

Components of DFS

Component Description

DFS namespaces

• The hierarchy of folders viewed by clients

• Each folder has one or more targets

• Domain-based or stand-alone

DFS replication

• Replicates data between shared folders

Lesson 2: Designing Distributed File System

• New DFS Features in Windows Server 2008

• Guidelines for Designing DFS Namespace Availability

• Considerations for Configuring Referrals

• Guidelines for Optimizing DFS Namespaces

• Guidelines for Deploying DFS Namespaces

• Guidelines for Designing DFS Replication

New DFS Features in Windows Server 2008

New Namespaces features are:

• Access-based enumeration

• Cluster support for stand-alone namespaces

• Windows Server 2008 mode to enable to new features

New DFS Replication features are:

• Content freshness check

• Improved handling of unexpected shutdowns

• Faster replication and better bandwidth utilization

• Propagation report to test replication

• Replicate now option

Guidelines for Designing DFS Namespace Availability

• Increase availability for domain-based namespaces by using

multiple namespace servers

• Increase availability for stand-alone namespaces by using

failover clustering

• Increase availability for folders by using multiple targets

• Use stand-alone namespaces when there are more than

5,000 folders (2008 R2 has fixed this 50,000)

• Increase availability for domain-based namespaces by using

multiple namespace servers

• Increase availability for stand-alone namespaces by using

failover clustering

• Increase availability for folders by using multiple targets

• Use stand-alone namespaces when there are more than

5,000 folders

Considerations for Configuring Referrals

Considerations for referral ordering:

• Configuration can be unique for each folder

• Lowest cost presents targets in the local Active Directory site first

• Exclude targets outside of the client site does not present targets in another Active directory site

Considerations for target priority:

• Can override an exclusion in referral ordering

• Use First among targets of equal cost to designate a primary server in an Active Directory site

• Use First among all targets to designate a primary server in the enterprise

• Use Last among all targets when a server is primarily used for another purpose

Guidelines for Optimizing DFS Namespaces

Disable referrals to a folder during maintenance

Shorten the referral cache on clients to speed up discovery of namespace changes

Enable client failback to resume using a preferred server after a recovery

Optimize namespace polling for consistency or scalability

The best practices for deploying DFS namespaces are:

Best Practices for Deploying DFS Namespaces

Use DFS namespaces to create a unified folder hierarchy

Use multiple folder targets to increase availability

Use the lowest cost method for ordering target referrals

Use scalability mode for more than 16 namespace servers

Specify a primary server by using target priority to reduce

replication conflicts

Use DFS namespaces to create a unified folder hierarchy

Use multiple folder targets to increase availability

Use the lowest cost method for ordering target referrals

Use scalability mode for more than 16 namespace servers

Specify a primary server by using target priority to reduce

replication conflicts

Guidelines for Designing DFS Replication

Guidelines for designing DFS replication include: Use a mesh replication topology only with less than 10

members

Use bandwidth throttling to ensure replication does not

overwhelm WAN links

Use cross-file remote differential compression to reduce

replication traffic

Use replication filters to prevent replication of

unwanted file types

Size Staging folders and Conflict and Deleted folders

appropriately

Lesson 3: Designing File Server Resource Manager Configuration

• FSRM Quotas

• FSRM File Screening

FSRM Quotas

FSRM quotas:

• Can be defined per volume or per folder

• Can limit storage utilization (hard) or notify (soft)

• Can notify by event, email, command, or report

• Can be standardized with quota templates

• Cannot control the type of data stored

FSRM File Screening

Guidelines for using FSRM for file screening include:

• Monitor files based on file extensions

• Prevent file storage or notify

• Use file groups to define allowed or denied

file extensions

• Standardize by using file screen templates