Windows File and Print Services - MCTS Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration - page 237

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Figure 6-21

The DFS Management MMC

In Figure 6-21, the namespace is called CoolData, and under it is the list of shares consoli-
dated under this namespace. The shares can be hosted on one or more servers. Users can access
all shares under the namespace by using the UNC path syntax \\ domain \ namespace or
\\ server \ namespace . In this case, users can access the Marketing and Shared shares with the UNC
path \\server99\CoolData or \\w2k8ad99.com\CoolData. In addition, a drive letter can be
mapped to the namespace. From the user's standpoint, CoolData is a share, and the Marketing
and Shared folders just appear to be folders under the share. Figure 6-22 shows what accessing
the CoolData namespace looks like from the user's perspective.

Figure 6-22

Accessing a DFS namespace

Aside from making file shares easier to access, particularly in large networks with dozens or
hundreds of shares, DFS provides fault tolerance. You can replicate an entire namespace, along
with the shares it hosts, to one or more servers, or replicate a share to another share on another
server. Both procedures increase fault tolerance in case a server hosting a share or namespace