DFS. Will it goto fastest server?

[dany2010]

Hi,

 

Currently our network is over five sites. Each site has its own file server and each server has its own programs folder that contains all of the msi's. This means that software is installed from the local servers rather than over the VLAN.

 

All sites contain the same software so what i would like to do it create a domain DFS namespace with the five folders all replicating so i only have to make the one change. I can then also delete the five software installation gpo's that we currently have one for a single gpo that points to \\domain.local\programs\msi file.

 

The biggest concern i have is that two of our schools currently have mega slow connections and from experience found that installing from another sites server took about a year.

 

Is DFS clever enough that it will ping the five servers and then choose the local server rather than a server from another site?

[morganw]

I think you would have to define multiple sites and site links to reflect the five physical sites, and from there it should be able to work out for the best route for itself. Apparently you can also manually specify weightings with SRV records but I guess this would only work if you had separate DNS zones at each site.

 

Give that two of the links are slow, you would probably want to set the DFS replication to happen out-of-hours, but when you are editing GPOs it is likely to be during working hours. When Group Policy applies as workstation reboots it would try to read the MSI over the slow link because the copy on the local fast server doesn't exist yet.

[dany2010]

I think you would have to define multiple sites and site links to reflect the five physical sites, and from there it should be able to work out for the best route for itself. Apparently you can also manually specify weightings with SRV records but I guess this would only work if you had separate DNS zones at each site.

 

Give that two of the links are slow, you would probably want to set the DFS replication to happen out-of-hours, but when you are editing GPOs it is likely to be during working hours. When Group Policy applies as workstation reboots it would try to read the MSI over the slow link because the copy on the local fast server doesn't exist yet.

 

Didnt even think about that. You would have to wait overnite before rolling out.

 

Is there a replicate now button? IF we are just rolling out a small program we dont want to have to wait.

 

Another simple way i guess is to create a little robocopy sctipt that can be run to mirror the folder. I can then run it manually and see when its finished to update the GPO.

Edited October 4, 2012 by dany2010

[Arthur]

Another simple way i guess is to create a little robocopy script that can be run to mirror the folder.

You can use RoboCopy to pre-seed DFS, but there are some caveats to be aware of. See the section titled "Pre-seeding with Robocopy" in the link below...

 

Replacing DFSR Member Hardware or OS (Part 2: Pre-seeding) « Ask the Directory Services Team