Checklist: Deploy DFS Namespaces

Distributed File System (DFS) Namespaces and DFS Replication can be used to publish documents, software, and line-of-business data to users throughout an organization. Although DFS Replication alone is sufficient to distribute data, you can use DFS Namespaces to configure the namespace so that a folder is hosted by multiple servers, each of which holds an updated copy of the folder. This increases data availability and distributes the client load across servers.

When browsing a folder in the namespace, users are not aware that the folder is hosted by multiple servers. When a user opens the folder, the client computer is automatically referred to a server on its site. If no same-site servers are available, you can configure the namespace to refer the client to a server that has the lowest connection cost as defined in Active Directory Directory Services (AD DS).

To deploy DFS Namespaces, perform the following tasks:

• Review the concepts, and requirements of DFS Namespaces. Overview of DFS Namespaces
• Choose a namespace type
• Create a DFS namespace
• Migrate existing domain-based namespaces to Windows Server 2008 mode domain-based namespaces. Migrate a Domain-based Namespace to Windows Server 2008 mode
• Increase availability by adding namespace servers to a domain-based namespace. Add Namespace Servers to a Domain-based DFS Namespace
• Add folders to a namespace. Create a Folder in a DFS Namespace
• Add folder targets to folders in a namespace. Add Folder Targets
• Replicate content between folder targets using DFS Replication (optional). Replicate Folder Targets Using DFS Replication

Additional References

• Namespaces
• Checklist: Tune a DFS Namespace
• Replication