Backing Up DFS

Administrators do not need to perform any special steps to back up DFS data other than backing up the actual data in the folders as well as the System State of the servers that host and participate in the DFS namespace. The following elements should be backed up:

• Folder Target data: This is the actual data that is being accessed by end users. With a true multimaster replication topology, only one target needs to be backed up for each DFS folder target.
• DFS hierarchy: For standalone DFS namespaces, the System State of the root server and System State of all servers containing DFS targets should be backed up. For domain-based DFS namespaces, the System States of domain controllers and all other servers containing DFS targets should be backed up. Active Directory stores all the DFS hierarchy and DFSR replication connection information. Active Directory is backed up with the domain controller System State.

To back up the DFS Hierarchy only, the DFSutil can be used to export the settings. To perform this task, follow these steps:

1. Log on to the Windows Server 2008 R2 system that has the DFS services installed, with an account with local server administrator privileges.
2. Click Start, Run; then type cmd in the search pane and press Enter to open a Command Prompt window.
3. In the Command Prompt window, type dfsutil domain companyabc.com and press Enter to list all of the namespaces in the companyabc.com domain as an example. For our example, we returned the Apps name space located at \\companyabc.com\apps.
4. Once the namespace name is determined, type dfsutil root export \\companyabc.com\apps c:\dfs-export-namespace-Apps.xml and press Enter to export this namespace.
5. In the Command Prompt window, type c:\dfs-export-namespace-Apps.xml to review the exported information.

This process should be performed on all DFS server and domain-based namespaces for reference. Also, this file can be used to migrate a DFS namespace from a set of namespace servers to a different set of servers by deleting the original namespace, editing this file, and using the dfsutil root import command.