Technical Documentation

DFS Configuration and Best Practices

DFS Configuration and Best Practices

Nasuni Corporation – Boston, MA

Windows Distributed File System (DFS)

Windows Distributed File System (DFS) is a technology with which most
Windows administrators are already familiar. DFS allows administrators to
organize many CIFS shares under a single logical network path. DFS became a
standard feature in Windows Server 2003 and has been provided in subsequent
Windows Server versions. This document discusses DFS and how DFS can work
with the Nasuni Edge Appliance.

Overview
In this document, we refer to a “DFS-N”, or a DFS Namespace. A DFS
Namespace acts in a manner similar to a Domain Name System (DNS) in that a
DFS Namespace allows an administrator to replace complex file, folder, or share
management with a simple, easy-to-access pointer. This enables an
administrator to make changes to the underlying storage or file system without
any disruption of service to end-users.

Also, because DFS works like DNS, DFS can provide failover capabilities.
However, Nasuni does not recommend using DFS for automated failover.

In the DFS world, there are three core components:

• Namespace
The namespace is the domain-based (recommended) container of all
folders that act as reference pointers. Most organizations have one or two
namespaces. It is uncommon to see a large number of namespaces within
an organization, because this creates needless complexity. There are
limited benefits to creating multiple namespaces; a handful of global
settings are managed at the namespace level, such as whether or not the
namespace is domain-based. If the namespace is domain-based, it means
that each Active Directory Domain Controller can act as a router for DFS;
in this scenario, DFS is not dependent on a single server acting as a
router.
• Folders
These are the reference pointers that users access. They are similar to
shares in the sense that they are where the client is pointed.
• Folder Targets
These are the actual physical targets where the actual data is contained
and stored on an actual storage device. A single folder can have multiple
folder targets if the folder targets are identical (such as a Nasuni Edge
Appliance).

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 Technical Documentation
DFS Configuration and Best Practices

Note: Limits on domains, groups, users, objects, and other items are the same
as the limits of Active Directory. See Active Directory Maximum Limits -
Scalability for details.

Note: This document does not address DFS-Replication (DFS-R). The multiple-
site sharing capabilities of Nasuni supersede the requirements for DFS-R
file sharing. Contact Nasuni for more detail on Nasuni’s file sharing
capability across multiple sites or locations.

An overview of these components appears in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: DFS Management View

For a basic DFS setup, you need to create a namespace (which often already
exists) and add any new folders to that namespace. Adding each new folder
prompts the administrator to connect folder targets, which are the Nasuni
instances (covered in the “Configuring DFS with Nasuni” section of this
document). This process is quick and should not take more than a few minutes; it
takes a bit longer if you have a large number of remote facilities.

Configuring DFS with Sites and Services

In order for the system to connect users to the geographically closest Nasuni
Edge Appliance, the administrator must take advantage of the Sites and Services
feature of Windows Server 2008 (Active Directory). This capability allows the
administrator to manage subnets such that Active Directory and DFS know which
Site a user is currently visiting, based on their dynamically assigned IP address.
DFS then routes a user to the Nasuni Edge Appliance in Sites and Services
nearest to the user, depending on the user’s IP Address and SubNet (Site).

Active Directory Sites and Services must be configured properly when using the
DFS name space. For example, every subnet that users log in to must be defined
in Sites and Services; otherwise, the users do not belong to a site, and cannot
access any Nasuni Edge Appliance. Also, each site must have a Domain
Controller for the DFS service to run on that subnet.

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DFS Configuration and Best Practices

To use DFS to set the ordering method for folder targets in folder referrals, follow
these steps:
1. Click Start, run Administrative Tools, and then click DFS Management.
2. In the console tree, under the Namespaces node, right-click a folder with
targets, and then click Properties.
3. On the Referrals tab, select the “Exclude targets outside of the client's
site” check box.

Failing to specify “Exclude targets outside of the client’s site” can cause sync
errors, missing files, and other issues. DFS should never perform a referral
(failover), unless it is specified explicitly. In particular, Referrals should never be
set to “Lowest Cost”.

Most customers have one Nasuni Edge Appliance per site listed in Sites and
Services. Each site must have an Active Directory Domain Controller and a
Nasuni Edge Appliance for the Namespace → Referrals tab to be set to
“Exclude targets outside of the client’s site”.

You can use the DFSDiag.exe tool to check your DFS-Namespaces (DFS-N)
configuration.

Another benefit of using DFS is that users can use the same
\\host\sharename no matter which location they are in. They don’t need to
know the different names of the Nasuni Edge Appliance in order to connect at
different locations.

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 Technical Documentation
DFS Configuration and Best Practices

Configuring DFS with Nasuni

Adding the Nasuni Edge Appliance to a DFS namespace is a simple exercise.
You need a DFS namespace already configured (in this example, “dfs-demo”)
and a Nasuni Edge Appliance joined to the Active Directory domain.

The next step is to add the desired share from the Nasuni Edge Appliance as a
folder target. This is the same process you would use to add any CIFS folder
target.

Figure 2: Add desired Nasuni Edge Appliance share as a folder target

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DFS Configuration and Best Practices

At this point, client machines within the namespace can easily browse by typing
in the address of the new DFS share (in this case, the share configured on the
Nasuni Edge Appliance). If we then type in the name “dfs-demo”, we see the
share residing on the Nasuni Edge Appliance.

Figure 3: Client view from DFS Share address

By clicking the Share (named “files” in Figure 3), a user can then access the
Nasuni Edge Appliance share as needed, exposing all existing files and folders
that the user has permissions to view and edit.

The following Figure 4 displays a typical view a user would have once they are
connected and viewing the Nasuni Edge Appliance share.

Figure 4: Share access view from client

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DFS Configuration and Best Practices

The following Figure 5 shows how a user could map a Nasuni Edge Appliance
share (“files”) to our Windows 7 host computer. This is the same method any
user would use to map or connect to a network drive or CIFS share. Active
Directory controls access to the share and folders to ensure that users have
access to only their data. If this were a drive mapping that should reconnect at
login or become persistent, the “reconnect at logon” check box would be
checked.

Figure 5: Share mapping from client

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DFS Configuration and Best Practices

Nasuni Edge Appliance User Interface

In the Nasuni Edge Appliance User Interface, there are several useful tools for
configuring and viewing shares, as well as for viewing clients connected to the
Nasuni Edge Appliance and associated shares. Figure 6 below shows the home
screen of the Nasuni Edge Appliance with the Status drop-down menu to show
the “CIFS Status” menu selection. The Status drop-down menu also allows
access to NFS Exports. The Configuration drop-down menu provides access to
Active Directory settings. The Volumes drop-down offers selections for creating
CIFS Shares and NFS Exports, as well as other Share-level configuration
options.

Figure 6: Nasuni Edge Appliance GUI CIFS Status menu view

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DFS Configuration and Best Practices

From here, an administrator is able to view all the clients that are actively
connected to the Nasuni Edge Appliance. This is very useful information if you
need to perform Share administration or apply system updates.

Figure 7: Nasuni Edge Appliance GUI CIFS Client Status view

Automatic Failover (Referral)

The use of DFS can potentially be beneficial for all the reasons mentioned
above. However, because of the large number of variable conditions that are
possible, the use of DFS should be tested extensively before using DFS in a
production environment. Possible issues include degraded performance if DFS
resolves to distant sources and file conflicts as a result of switching to alternate
sources.

For these reasons, Nasuni does not uniformly recommend using DFS for
automated failover (referral).

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DFS Configuration and Best Practices

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One Marina Park Drive
Boston, MA 02210

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