Windows 7 / Networking

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Remote Storage Service (RSS)

The Remote Storage Service was included with Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003. The Remote Storage Service enables administrators to migrate or archive data to lower-cost, slower disks or tape media to reduce the required storage space on file servers.

This service, however, has been discontinued in Windows Server 2008 and is not included in Windows Server 2008 R2 either. Many organizations that required this sort of functionality have turned to third-party vendors to provide this type of hierarchical storage management. However, the New File Management Tasks node within the File Server Resource Manager console provides a function that allows administrators to schedule processes that will report on files that might be candidates for moving to alternate storage through a function called file expiration. This can be configured to notify both administrators and end-user file owners of upcoming files that will be expired and moved to alternate volumes. One main difference, however, is that file expiration does not leave a link in the original file location as the Remote Storage Service previously did. File expiration is covered later in this tutorial in the "File Management Tasks" section.

CAUTION: If a Windows Server 2003 32- or 64-bit system is running Remote Storage Service, upgrading this system to Windows Server 2008 32- or 64-bit or Windows Server 2008 R2 causes any data stored on Remote Storage media to become inaccessible.

Distributed File System (DFS)

As the file services needs of an organization change, it can be a challenging task for administrators to design a migration plan to support the new requirements. In many cases when file servers need additional space or need to be replaced, extensive migration time frames, scheduled outages, and, sometimes, heavy user impact results.

In an effort to create highly available file services that reduce end-user impact and simplify file server management, Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the Distributed File System (DFS) service. DFS provides access to file data from a single namespace that can be used to represent a single server or a number of servers that store different sets or replicated sets of the same data. For example, when using DFS in an Active Directory domain, a DFS namespace named \\companyabc.com\UserShares could redirect users to \\Server10\UserShares or to a replicated copy of the data stored at \\Server20\UserShares.

Users and administrators both can benefit from DFS because they only need to remember a single server or domain name to locate all the necessary file shares. DFS is described in detail later in this tutorial.

Distributed File System Replication (DFSR)

With the release of Windows 2003 R2 and continuing with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, DFS has now been upgraded. In previous versions, DFS Replication was performed by the File Replication Service (FRS). Starting with Windows Server 2003 R2, DFS Replication is now performed by the Distributed File System Replication service, or DFSR. DFSR uses the Remote Differential Compression (RDC) protocol to replicate data. The RDC protocol improves upon FRS with better replication stability, more granular administrative control, and additional replication and access options. Also, starting with Windows Server 2008 R2, RDC improves replication by only replicating the portions of files that have changed, as opposed to replicating the entire file, and replication can now be secured in transmission. DFSR and RDC are discussed in detail in the section, "The Distributed File System," later in this tutorial.

File System Management Tools

Windows Server 2008 R2 provides several tools administrators can leverage to manage Windows Server 2008 R2 file servers. Administrators can install these tools on Windows Server 2008 R2 systems by adding the File Services tools feature to the system. The File Services tools can be added by invoking the Add Features applet located in Server Manager. The tools are located in the Add Features, Remote Server Administration Tools, Role Administration Tools hierarchy. The File Services tools installed in this group include the following:

• Distributed File System tools
• File Server Resource Manager tools
• Services for Network File System tools

These tools are detailed in the section, "File Server Resource Manager (FSRM)," later in this tutorial.

File System Monitoring and Reporting

Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the ability for administrators to enable automated monitoring and reporting of the file system. This includes reporting on storage and quota usage, file screening, file group by types as well as owners, and file properties. Also, new to Windows Server 2008 R2 is the ability to produce reports on file classification and file expiration file management tasks. The aforementioned reports can be configured using the File Server Resource Manager tool detailed in the section, "File Server Resource Manager (FSRM)," later in this tutorial.