Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of draperlab1
draperlab1

asked on

DFS and netapp shares....

I currently have a standalone DFS root on 2008 R2 Standard.

There are currently some folders in the namespace that have folder targets beneath them.

The folder targets point to both Windows shares and some shares on a NetApp SAN.

My goal is for me to be able to replicate this configuration to other domain controllers so anyone can connect and see the same namespace. \\dc1\services would look like \\dc2\services

Can this be done with DFS replication or does replication only replicate actual data? I just want to replicate the namespace configuration since its just a bunch of folder targets that point to other machines.

Also will this only work with Windows server shares and not shares on a SAN?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Rick Hobbs
Rick Hobbs
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of draperlab1
draperlab1

ASKER

So is there anyway to just replicate the pointers? That's really all I would like to do.
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Not automatically.  But you should be able to take the SAN connection and share it and then map it on the second system.
If I switch to AD integrated then the pointers should "replicate" I assume since they are now integrated into AD.
I don't believe the Netapp will replicate since it's not running DFS
I dont really need to replicate the data on the netapp or anywhere for that matter.

I just want to make sure the I can have multiple instances of the namespace and pointers just in case a DC (which hosts the standalone root) goes down.

Right now I have a single standalone namespace, so if that server goes down there is nowhere clients can go to access the pointers in the namespace.

If I make an AD integrated root, will that "replicate" the pointers and namespace configuration since it now becomes integrated? The pointers themselves will still point to shares on the NetApp, etc...

I think that may work since the Netapp is still a leaf and DFS just has pointers to the data
Ok, I appreciate the info. I am going to leave this question up for a little bit longer...
Do the SAN connections change all the time?  If not, you should be able to create the pointers on the second sever and be in business.  Do each server have a SAN host adapter in it?
They change once and a while.

I actually just tested this in a dev environment and a AD integrated senario is what I need. DFS replication can be used in both AD integrated and standalone roots, but as stated before, will actually replicate the files, which is not what I need.

The AD integrated namespace without DFS replication will allow the namespace configuration to be propagated amongst multiple domain controllers.

I will close this questions and spread out the points.