Microsoft Azure AZ-800 — Section 18: Configure and manage Windows Server file shares Part 4

143. Implement and configure Distributed File System (DFS)

So here I am in front of my NYC DC one, and I’m going to install distributed file system to do that, I’m going to open up server manager. I’m going to go to manage ad roles and features. Click Next, Next, next and expand out file and storage services. Go to file and I scuzzy services and I will see that I’ve got distributed file system namespaces right here. I’m going to add that I’m going to add replication as well, so, I’m going to have both of those when I click Next, next and install, and I’m going to go ahead and pulls a video while that’s happening.

OK, so once that’s done, I’m going to hit close and I’m going to go to the tools menu and server manager. And there is distributed file system management so that an open that up. And then from there we have our namespaces and replication options.

So, we’ll start with namespaces. We’re just going to go right here and right click and click to create a new namespace. Cases enter the name of the server that will host the namespace. The server, you specify, will be known as the name, so a server.

So, I’m going to use this server, which is in what I see. Do you see one? OK? From there, we’re going to click next. And then it says, enter the namespace for our enter. The name for the namespace namespace will appear after the server or domain name in the namespace path, such as a server, name, slash name or domain name. And this will depend on the kind of namespace you create which you’ll see in a second. But let’s just go with sales.

OK, so, we’ll call this. The namespace will be called sales data. How about that sales data? And then from there, if we wanted to edit some settings here, we can do that namespace and you can set some permissions, allow all users to have read. Only all users are read only, right? Administrators have full access. Other users have read administrator of elections or that you use every right. You can set customization. I’m going to go with this option here.

OK. As you can see, it’s just going to create a folder here called DFS root slash sales data. That’s going to be the link or main local path here.

So, we’re going to click next. And then so here’s what you have to make a decision. Is this going to be a domain based namespace or a standalone based namespace now with a domain based namespace again? Great thing about doing this it gets stored in Active Directory. And if it’s stored in Active Directory, then a user can say backslash backslash, the server name or the domain name slash and sells datand they’ll they’ll be redirected. And you can have essentially multiple links for the namespace and be directed to the nearest one, which is a which is neat, especially if you mix this with DSR, which I’ll show you in just a moment.

OK? They also tell you that you have. You can enable Windows Server 2008 mode, essentially with 2008 mode. You can have up to 50000 folders linked with this namespace, whereas if you uncheck this and go with Windows 2000 mode, then you can only do 5000 courses. You know, it’s still a lot of folders regardless. But the other neat thing about Windows Server 2008 mode is it supports access based enumeration, which means you can enable that feature through server manager and make it where users can only see the folders and data that they actually have read access to. All right, so that’s the benefit there now. Alternatively, you can also do a standalone namespace. This if you are not. Most people would only use this if their server is not part of a domain, in fact, if your server is not part of the domain. This option is great out.

OK, so standalone namespace is if you’re just going to have one DFES server you don’t want to, you know, linking into Active Directory.

So, in order for somebody to go to your folder that you’re setting up here, they’d actually have to slash in DC one Sarcelles data, they wouldn’t be able to actually specify the domain name and be sent to the nearest copy and all that if you’re mixing this with the FSR.

So that’s what standalone is. Ultimately, for the most part, Microsoft recommends using domain based in a domain because this going to give you the most bang for your buck.

OK.

So, we’re going to one click next on that. At that point, we’re good to go. We’re going to tell it to create, and we’ve now officially created our namespace.

So the next step here is to take a look at our namespace. We can click on our namespace and you will notice that examlabpractice.com slash sales data is the way we’d reach that. And then we can right click that click to create a new folder. These are called target folders, and this, of course, is what’s going to actually link to a shared folder somewhere.

So, I’m going to create a folder here called Docs, and then we’ll click Add, and we’ll actually make this path linked to NYC Server one.

OK.

So, it’ll be a completely different server than to distribute than the distributed file system server.

So click Browse. Here, we’ll click Browse. We’re going to put in NYC -SVR one, and if we want to link to one of these shares here we could, we’re going to click to create a new share. I’m going to call it docs. All right. All right, and then a local path will just be on the C drive of that machine.

OK. Or if I wanted, actually, I think I’ve got a sales data folder, I could put it in there.

So stored in there.

OK, so then specify the support administrators everybody else gets. Read if I wanted to customize it and give like, you know, salespeople permissions all that I can’t. I’m not really going to get into permissions right now, but I could. All right.

So going to go in and click OK to that. Click OK, click OK. And I’ve now created this dark folder, OK? From there, also create a new folder. And I’ll call this let’s just call it spreadsheets. All right, and click Add Browse. We’ll put the spreadsheets folder on this server, so, we’ll say new. We’ll just call this spreadsheets. All right. And then the local path will destroy that on the C drive. Set the permissions for it. Click OK, click OK. Click OK. And there we go. We’ve now created our two different name spaces. All right now, we are the only namespace server we could set up another. Another distributed file system server. And it could also be a namespace in that way, too. If something happened to this namespace server, then it would be able to go and communicate with that.

So from there, I can click on the delegation Tab and I can see what the rights are permissions that have been set so far. And I’ve also got a search Tab over here that I can use for searching for. If I had a lot of folders, this would come in handy for it.

So, for example, I wanted to search for the word docs I could, and you can see that that shows up there.

So this just helpful for being able to locate the different folders that you’re trying to find. All right.

So just to kind of test this out, if I go down here like, let’s say I’m an end user, I’m on a Windows client computer, whatever, I could just go down here to search and I could just put backslash, backslash, Zam Labpractice.com, and I can actually see these cells data folder show up right there. I can double click on there and you can see the Docs folder and the spreadsheets folder. If I double click on the Docs folder, I’m actually being redirected to server one into that sales data folder and then there’s the spreadsheets folder as well.

So as you can see, this directing me to the place it’s supposed to, and that is how we can use DFS namespaces.

So next up is to take a look at DFS R, which is a distributed file system replication.

Now, in order to do this, we are going to need to have another server to replicate too.

So, I’m going to jump over to my NYC server one right here, and we’re just going to open up the server manager, go to manager roles of features and just install it on this.

So you’ve seen this process before, it’s exact same process we use to install this a little bit earlier.

OK.

So, I’ll go ahead and put this stuff all in there. I don’t actually need namespaces, but I wanted to add that anyway.

OK. I’m going to go ahead and click install and just pause recording while that’s happening.

OK, so once that’s done, I can hit close. I can go to ols, open up the distributed file system manager just like I did with NYC DC one, and currently we don’t really have anything configured yet. All right, so there’s nothing configured as far as replication goes. All right. But now we’re ready to set up replication, so let’s jump back over to NYC DC one. All right. And we’re going to right click right here where it says replication and click to create a new replication group.

OK, so Replication Group is going to be a group of servers that are going to replicate specific information. You have to actually choose what kind of replication group you want you. The first one is called a multipurpose replication group, which can be used for various things replicating from one site to the other. And from that site back, you can also do what’s called a replication group for data collection, which is more about having like a hub machine, maybe, or hub server that’s collecting data from different branch offices. In my case, I’m going to go with Multipurpose Replication Group, I’m going to click next and it wants a name. All right, so, I’m just going to call this the sales replication group. All right. And of course, you get your description, specify the domain name. I’m going to click next, and then we’re going to specify some resources. Click Add and then select the two or more servers that will become members in the group.

So, we’ll click Add. We’re going to add in, y’see, -DC one first and then we’ll add see server one second.

OK, so there it is. We’ve got our two servers. We’re going to click next. All right.

So from there, we didn’t choose the other option that second option you saw in that previous screen. That’s why Hub and spoke is great out.

So hub and spoke is if you’ve got a hub server that’s collecting data from other servers, in our case, we can do format. That means everybody can replicate everybody or we can do no topology and we can just manually set which servers we want to replicate. I’m going to say full mesh. I’m going to make it where they can all replicate. Click next, and then it’s going to let us choose the bandwidth.

So says Rocket, continuously using the specified bandwidth, use this option to enable replication 24 hours a day, seven days a week using following bandwidth.

So, I can say for I can adjust the bandwidth amount. You can also specify a schedule that it’s going to replicate. Keep in mind, though, if you if you go that route, you do have to consider the fact that you might have users changing data in one location and changing day to another location. And then they have a conflict and it ends up having to prompt the user to what to do, and you can run an issues. There’s better if you’re going to go that route that you have like a primary server that’s got the readable copy and everything else is read only and not allow users to make changes to it unless they’re interacting, you know, in a to that primary server.

So again, I’m not going to go with that option is going to allow full replication continuous. We’re going to click next and then says, OK, who’s the primary member? So who is going to be kind of in charge of the of all this replication? OK, So, it’s going to be in my CDK1 and then specify the folders that you want to replicate.

So, I’m going to click Add. And then from there, browse and we’ll go over here and. Let’s do this sales database folder I created earlier. All right.

So, we have sales database folder and we can set permissions down here.

OK, we can click OK on that and then we’re just going to click next. All right, we have NYC server. One tells users to specify the local path of replicated folder or whether the folder is read only select the appropriate member and then click Edit, right? So right now, this just NYC, NYC, DC one’s got it on C Colon and then right here for NYC server one, you could specify the path. All right.

So right now it says select the initial status of replicated folder on the member membership status disabled. I could say enable keep the folder synchronized with other member. And then we get to say we’ll just put it on the, you know, C drive. I’ll just let’s just create a little folder called sales database or this can all go. All right.

So put it there. All right. And then we can also say make the selected replicated folder on this member. Read only I’m not going to do that and allow it to be readable. Then I’m going to click next and click to create and it’s going to start. It looks like everything went through successfully, so, we’ll close. It says replication will not begin until the configuration is picked up by the members of the replication group. The amount of time this depends on Active Directory services, that’s fine.

OK.

So from there, here it is right here. You’ll notice that if we want, we can add new members if we want new folders, a new connection with another server, if we want. We can verify the topology.

OK.

So there’s various little little options there that we have for making sure that everything is set up correctly. All right.

So of course, the next step is to see if replication has occurred.

So let’s jump over to NYC server one.

OK. Let’s pull this up, and we’ll just kind of refresh, so, we’ll click the little refresh button here, and as you can see, it is showing up cells replication group is showing up and these are the two folders that have been replicated, so, it looks like we are in good shape. All right.

So, we can also click on connections and you can see the two connections here and why. CDC one NYC server one. We can look at the replicated folders that are being replicated. This the cells data folder. And then we can also look at delegation.

OK, so at that point, we are officially set up and I encourage you to if you want to try this out, give it a give it a shot on your own servers. If you set up a little lab environment and play around with it, that’s going to be a great way for you to learn it. But ultimately, hopefully now distributed file system is officially going to make sense to you.