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kuzum

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DFS and NAS

hi,

could you please tell me how DFS on 2008 r2 can be used as  NAS gateways or NAS heads without storage attached and only used with  SAN  pass through disk?

we currently have  physical servers hosting file services and using  clustered using Microsoft Failover Clustering technology as Nas! and NAs2
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kuzum

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to simplify the question, could you please explain how NAS gateway works with 2008 r2?
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Your server has the external storage reflected as a "local disk"
Either because it is an internal, directly connected or us iscsi or fc accessed.

Dfs is a referral service
Targets are transparent to the client, while links are redirects.

I am unclear what your question is.
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Im trying to understand a design that i have. They have dfs name servers ( 2008 R2)  setup as Nas cluster using microsoft failover cluster technology)   There are 5 nas devices called nas1 nas2 nas3 etc .. And each of these nas device dedicated storage assigned to them in San.  I understAn NAS devices are acting as gateways or heads in this design as they have no direct attached storage

Simply please let me to understand NAS gateway concept with file servers and nfs. Thanks
Server A has access to a San LUN via fc or iscsi. As drive G:
Server A has g:\sharefolder

Dfs \\addomain\rootpath\sharefolder has Server A as the target.

The same can be repeated for as many luns as a server has access to.

Clustered might be to reduce resource consumption/duplication.
Dfs includes dfs-r replication where the servers would replicate data among the members.

You seem to have clustered hosts
Obey of the functions that are clustered is file sharing. And they use dfs ( domain based fileshare) the destination/advantage of dfs based share versus server based, is dfs can replace target server transparently to the client. While a server based share rubs into issues when the old server is replaced by a new which even when the new server uses the old server name, the client will need to remap ......... Because of the change in server Id/credentialing.
I think you are confusing SAN (block protocol) and NAS (file protocol).

SAN protocols would be, SCSI, SAS, iSCSI, FC-AL etc
NAS protocols would be SMB/CIFS, NFS, AFP etc.

A Windows Server can be used as a NAS/File Server with localy connected storage, or with external storage, or as a SAN with a suitably configured iSCSI target.
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yo_bee
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thank you for all the excellent explanations. Could you please tell me the reasons for files servers to be used as NAS device?  I understands the reasons for MS clustering and DFS but what roles does NAS have here?
A file server _is_ a NAS
NAS is a Network Attach Storage appliance.
Some NAS's have the ability to serve up CIFS Shares with NTFS security that would act just like a Windows Servers sharing files.  The NAS can eliminate the need of you having to stand up a File Server.

If you us a NAS with iSCSI connection this would then be connected to a Windows Server and the connection would like a local drive to the server (e.g. E:\  or what ever letter you want other than C:\)
The security would be controlled by the Window Server rather than the NAS itself.
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thank you but we do not have NAS appliances  instead, file servers are acting as NAS device which is  called NAS heads or gateways. am I clear or misleading you?
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excellent demo
No problem.
Good luck and if you need further assistance please ping