The only way I know that a filer will "participate" (if you can call it that), in DFS is by using widelinks the filer can issue a client a DFS redirect if it accesses the widelink. In this way you can have a directory point to another UNC path on the same filer, a different filer, or in fact any system that supports UNC paths. But this feature doesn't talk to a DFS server or do any type of participation with it. It's internal to the filer.
The big thing that VFM provides is a true CIFS global name space. And it understands NTAP things like SnapMirror so if a SnapMirror source goes down, it can detect that condition, break the snapmirror, then redirect your clients to the destination (which is now read/write). People have also used it for CIFS data migrations.
-- Adam Fox adamfox@netapp.com
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From: Mike Partyka [mailto:mpartyka@acmn.com] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 10:32 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Microsoft DFS participation and Virtual File Manager
Hello All,
I've seen some posts recently talking about using the filer to participate in a DFS schema. I asked NetApp support if a filer could participate in MS DFS and was told no, and referred to Virtual File Manager which seems to replace the DFS schema not allow the filer to participate. What is required from a NetApp storage perspective to participate in MS DFS? Also does anyone have familiarity with VFM and whether if has any advantages over VFM?
Thx
