a few questions on server 2008 DFS

server 2008 DFS

1) AD domain required?

2) can DFS be used to synch a directory structure between a few servers all
of which belong to completely different AD forests?

3) does DFS/FRS use BITS?

4) does DFS/FRS perform delta copies of some kind? (the files I'm looking to
use this for will be large)

I'm looking into implementing WDS and have 6 sites to account for and want
to use DFS to enable a single place to manage image files, and have them
replicated to all the sites. At the moment I don't know if each site will
have a seperate AD or all be a part of the same forest, the AD
infrastructure is only needed to support WDS, its not for anything else.

any input is welcome,
thanks.

Hi,

1. Not for standalone DFS Namespaces. You will need an AD domain if you want
to replicate data or use the more sophisticated domain-based namespaces.

2. No, DFSR (and FRS) must operate in the same forest. Robocopy can be used
between forests via custom scripting and creating trusts/configuring security.

3. No. DFSR (and FRS) each use their own technologies. Do not use FRS
without a very good reason, it is deprecated - use DFSR (DFS Replication),
which is built in to 2008.

4. DFSR uses a technology called Remote Differential Compression, which is
delta block replication. It also compresses the delta blocks. As long as the
files being replicated are not rewritten in a scrambled fashion (such as the
ZIP format, which completely rebuilds the file at a binary level every time a
file is added/removed from a ZIP archive), you will usually see very good
performance with RDC.

If you're building this all out new for a specific WDS-only environment
(which is kinda weird?), there is likely no good reason to use multiple
forests, or even multiple domains.

You will need to chat with the WDS folks in their newsgroup to see how well
that will work, I don't really know.

--
Ned Pyle - MSFT
Enterprise Platforms Support


"James" wrote:

> server 2008 DFS
>
> 1) AD domain required?
>
> 2) can DFS be used to synch a directory structure between a few servers all
> of which belong to completely different AD forests?
>
> 3) does DFS/FRS use BITS?
>
> 4) does DFS/FRS perform delta copies of some kind? (the files I'm looking to
> use this for will be large)
>
> I'm looking into implementing WDS and have 6 sites to account for and want
> to use DFS to enable a single place to manage image files, and have them
> replicated to all the sites. At the moment I don't know if each site will
> have a seperate AD or all be a part of the same forest, the AD
> infrastructure is only needed to support WDS, its not for anything else.
>
> any input is welcome,
> thanks.
>
>
>

Thank you for the great information! I'll check with the deployment group on
how well it will work with WDS's Image Store (.wim files). Yes, the setup is
a bit off from typical WDS scenario (internal corp usage)... its going to be
used to deploy base OS images to servers that belong to many different
companies in a datacenter, and so will be on an isolated network used only
for deployment with it's on AD infrastructure, mainly because WDS requires
AD, and it looks like now also for DFSR (6 sites).

thanks again.


"Ned Pyle - MSFT" <> wrote in message
news9AB6570-1017-4E59-9CD8-...
> Hi,
>
> 1. Not for standalone DFS Namespaces. You will need an AD domain if you
> want
> to replicate data or use the more sophisticated domain-based namespaces.
>
> 2. No, DFSR (and FRS) must operate in the same forest. Robocopy can be
> used
> between forests via custom scripting and creating trusts/configuring
> security.
>
> 3. No. DFSR (and FRS) each use their own technologies. Do not use FRS
> without a very good reason, it is deprecated - use DFSR (DFS Replication),
> which is built in to 2008.
>
> 4. DFSR uses a technology called Remote Differential Compression, which is
> delta block replication. It also compresses the delta blocks. As long as
> the
> files being replicated are not rewritten in a scrambled fashion (such as
> the
> ZIP format, which completely rebuilds the file at a binary level every
> time a
> file is added/removed from a ZIP archive), you will usually see very good
> performance with RDC.
>
> If you're building this all out new for a specific WDS-only environment
> (which is kinda weird?), there is likely no good reason to use multiple
> forests, or even multiple domains.
>
> You will need to chat with the WDS folks in their newsgroup to see how
> well
> that will work, I don't really know.
>
> --
> Ned Pyle - MSFT
> Enterprise Platforms Support
>
>
> "James" wrote:
>
>> server 2008 DFS
>>
>> 1) AD domain required?
>>
>> 2) can DFS be used to synch a directory structure between a few servers
>> all
>> of which belong to completely different AD forests?
>>
>> 3) does DFS/FRS use BITS?
>>
>> 4) does DFS/FRS perform delta copies of some kind? (the files I'm looking
>> to
>> use this for will be large)
>>
>> I'm looking into implementing WDS and have 6 sites to account for and
>> want
>> to use DFS to enable a single place to manage image files, and have them
>> replicated to all the sites. At the moment I don't know if each site will
>> have a seperate AD or all be a part of the same forest, the AD
>> infrastructure is only needed to support WDS, its not for anything else.
>>
>> any input is welcome,
>> thanks.
>>
>>
>>

great info! thanks.

"Allenv" <> wrote in message
news:f6f5e777-0907-41bc-a028-...
> I'm certainly not the DFS expert, but I've been planning a multi-site
> replication scenario for the last month and have researched a couple
> of topics mentioned in your questions.You may want to look at a
> product called PeerSync http://www.peersoftware.com/
> We're currently testing it for a similar need. Our driving factor for
> not using Windows DFS was that DFS is not file lock aware, meaning
> that if a user in location 1 opens a file at his/her location while a
> user at location 2 already has the file locked, the FS is not aware
> that the file is locked another location and would allow both users to
> modify the files, causing a lot of admin headaches after replication.
> We're debating between running PeerSync, a DFS replacement, and
> PeerLock, a DFS enhancement that addresses the file lock issue
> described above. PeerSync has some cool features like increased
> control over replication intervals, bandwidth throttling during
> specified time periods, version control (with End User Interface!) and
> some enhanced compression over DFS, but it's about twice the price of
> PeerLock alone.