You can certainly implement DFS without replication. You would simply need to follow your same procedures of backup/restore, copying, etc. when a user moves from one site to another. It would just eliminate the need for modifying the user's profile path. Keep in mind that you'll need to modify your folder redirection GPO with the DFS path as well.
When a user accesses a DFS Namespace, DFS will determine which member of that namespace to direct the connection to based on the site they're logging in from. If you decided to use replication, DFS-R in Windows 2003 has pretty good compression capabilities, as well as the ability to only replicate changes to files. I had 600GB of user profiles/home directories replicating between 4 servers and I routinely had a reduction rate of 97% or greater. Example: If over a certain period of time, 1TB of data was modified and needed to replicate, DFS-R's compression and replication would only transfer 31GB. Sean On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 8:43 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon Harris <[email protected]> wrote on 08/28/2009 12:29:07 PM: > > > I don't know but I think DFS in 2000 was pretty poorly done, 2003 > > was better and I hear the 2008 fixed a lot of things so he may have > > issues with DFS. That is assuming he is still running all of his > > file servers on 2000, he does not say. > > 4 file servers are Win2003; one is still Win2000. That one is scheduled to > be upgraded to Win2003 in a couple months. > > We are also going to be going to 2003 AD later this year. (and 2008 AD > next year) > > So at some soon-to-be furute point, I will have 5 file servers, all at > 2003 AD, scattered about, all in a 2003 AD. If I do implement DFS, it > would be after all that. > > I guess I'm still unclear about the replication aspects of DFS. I get the > idea that I wouldn't need (num of servers x amount of each server storage) > at each site, but I am struggling to understand then how I am cutting out > bandwidth. I can see where I might be reducing it, but: > > If a person moves from Server #1 to Server #2, and I am using DFS, how > (what method occurs) does that user not be accessing his/her files over > the WAN link, if I am not replicating all their files to Server #2? I > suppose that is my fundamental knowledge block, at the moment. > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
