Deploy a namespace for publishing content

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003 R2

DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication can be used to publish documents, software, and line-of-business data to users throughout an organization. Although DFS Replication alone is sufficient to distribute data, you can use DFS Namespaces to configure the namespace so that a folder in the namespace is hosted by multiple servers, each of which holds a replica of the published content in that folder. This increases data availability and distributes the client load across servers.

When browsing a folder in the namespace, users are not aware that the folder is hosted by multiple servers. When a user opens the folder, the client computer is automatically referred to a server in its own site; if no same-site servers are available, you can configure the namespace to refer the client to a server that has the lowest connection cost as defined in Active Directory. In addition, using a DFS Namespaces enhancement known as target priority, you can specify the priority of servers so that a specific server is always placed first or last in the list of servers (known as a referral) the client receives when accessing a folder with targets in the namespace.

To configure a namespace for publication, perform the following procedures as specified:

  1. Create a namespace

  2. Create a folder in a namespace

  3. Add folder targets

  4. Set the ordering method for targets in referrals

  5. Set target priority to override referral ordering (Optional)

  6. Enable client failback (Optional)

  7. Replicate folder targets using DFS Replication (Optional)