Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Before you can use DFS-N, you need to install the role on a server. For DFS-R, you have to
install it on at least two servers. These servers must be part of an Active Directory Domain
Services (AD DS) domain if the DFS-N is AD-integrated, and you must be a member of the
Domain Admins group to install the DFS role and role services. You can install DFS-N in
Standalone mode, which is required if you want to install DFS-N on a cluster.
DFS roles can be installed on a Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Core installation. DFS-N
management can then be done locally or remotely with the Windows PowerShell DFSN
module; DFS-R management is done with the DFSR module. Remote administration can also
be performed by using the GUI administration console, which can be run from within Server
Manager or by opening Dfsmgmt.msc directly.
Windows Servers can host multiple DFS-N, depending on the version of Windows Server
they run. Table 2-1 lists the Windows Server versions and the DFS-N they support.
TABLE 2-1
Windows Server versions and their DFS-N support
Domain-Based
Namespaces
Stand-alone
Namespaces
Version
Windows Server 2012 Datacenter and Windows
Server 2012 R2 Datacenter
Multiple
Multiple
Windows Server 2012 Standard, Windows Server 2012
Enterprise, and Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
Multiple
Multiple
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
Multiple
Multiple
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Multiple
Multiple
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
Multiple
Single
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
Multiple
Multiple
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Multiple
Multiple
Windows Server 2008 Standard
Multiple
Single
Here are additional notes for stand-alone namespace servers:
■
They must contain an NTFS volume to host the namespace.
■
They can be a standalone server, a member server or a domain controller.
■
They can be hosted by a failover cluster to increase availability.
Here are additional notes for domain-based namespaces:
■
They must contain an NTFS file system volume to host the namespace.
■
They can be a member server or a domain controller in the same domain in which the
namespace is configured.
■
They can use multiple namespace servers to increase availability.
