2.1 Overview

A goal of information technology (IT) groups is to manage file server resources efficiently while keeping them available and secure for users. As networks expand to include more users and servers—whether they are located in one site or in geographically distributed sites—administrators find it increasingly difficult to keep users connected to the files that they require. On one hand, distributing resources across a network makes them more available and promotes cross-organizational efforts. On the other hand, storing files on different file servers that are located throughout an organization makes it difficult for users to know where to look for information. Administrators also find it difficult to keep track of all the servers and users who use those servers. The task of replacing an old server with a new server becomes a major communication chore when users across an organization have to be notified to update links and file paths.

Within the File Services Management system, the UNC path is usually rendered as "\\<Server>\<Share>\<Remaining path>", where a share is a specific instance of a file service that is present on the target server. While a UNC path name can be used to indicate the path to a specific physical share, it can also be used to virtualize access to shares, through the use of the Distributed File System (DFS): Referral and the Distributed File System (DFS): Namespace Management Protocols.

DFS allows administrators to group shared folders that are located on different servers by transparently connecting them to one or more DFS namespaces. By using the DFS tools, an administrator selects which shared folders to present in the namespace, designs the hierarchy in which those folders appear, and determines the names that the shared folders show. When a user views the namespace, the folders appear to reside on a single, high-capacity hard disk. Users can navigate the namespace without having to know the server names or shared folders that host the data.

An admin client uses management protocols to configure and query the state of services, such as the DFS Service and the File Services. The admin client is also used to configure various policies that apply to the object store on a file server, such as quotas to limit user disk space use, screening to restrict the type of content that is allowed to be stored), and other policies.