LaCie 12big Rack Fibre 8 Reference guide

LaCie Professional Server Table of Contents

Technical Brief: Shared Folders page 1

Table of Contents

1. Technical Brief: DFS ...................................................................................................... 3

2. Administrator ............................................................................................................... 3

3. Distributed File System (DFS) ........................................................................................ 4

3.1. Namespaces (DFS-N) ....................................................................................................................... 4

3.1.1. Namespace Example - Branch Ofﬁce ....................................................................................... 5

3.2. Replication (DFS-R) ........................................................................................................................ 12

3.2.1. Replication Example - Branch Ofﬁce ...................................................................................... 12

3.2.2. DFS-R as Backup .................................................................................................................. 14

3.2.3. DFS-R and Simultaneous File Sharing ..................................................................................... 14

4. Namespaces ............................................................................................................... 15

4.1. Create the Namespace ................................................................................................................... 15

4.1.1. New Namespace.................................................................................................................. 15

4.1.2. Add a Namespace Server (Domain only) ................................................................................ 20

4.1.3. Namespace: Creating Tree Folders and Adding Shared Folders ............................................... 22

5. Replication.................................................................................................................. 31

5.1. Why DFS-R? .................................................................................................................................. 31

5.2. DFS-R Setup .................................................................................................................................. 32

6. Contacting Customer Support ..................................................................................... 54

6.1. LaCie Technical Support Contacts ................................................................................................... 54

LaCie Professional Server Foreword

Technical Brief: DFS page 2

Copyrights

served. No part of this publication may

be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form or

by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without the prior written consent of La-

Cie.

Trademarks

Apple, Mac, Mac OS, and Macintosh are

registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Micro-

soft, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Win-

dows Vista, and Windows 7 are registered

trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oth-

er trademarks mentioned in this manual are

the property of their respective owners.

Changes

The material in this document is for infor-

mation only and subject to change without

notice. While reasonable efforts have been

made in the preparation of this document to

assure its accuracy, LaCie assumes no liabil-

ity resulting from errors or omissions in this

document, or from the use of the informa-

tion contained herein. LaCie reserves the right

to make changes or revisions in the product

design or the product manual without reser-

vation and without obligation to notify any

person of such revisions and changes.

IMPORTANT INFO: Any loss, corruption

or destruction of data while using a LaCie

device is the sole responsibility of the user,

and under no circumstances will LaCie be

held liable for the recovery or restoration of

this data. To help prevent the loss of your

data, LaCie highly recommends that you

keep TWO copies of your data; one copy

on your LaCie device, for instance, and a

second copy either on your internal hard

disk, another external hard disk or some

other form of removable storage media.

LaCie offers a complete line of CD and

DVD drives. If you would like more informa-

tion on backup, please refer to our website.

IMPORTANT INFO: 1GB =

1,000,000,000 bytes. 1TB =

1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Total acces-

sible capacity varies depending upon op-

erating environment (typically 5–10% less).

100720v1.0

LaCie Professional Server Introduction

Technical Brief: DFS page 3

1. Technical Brief: DFS

Please consider this Technical Brief as a valuable resource on how

to integrate DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication into your LaCie

professional server. While an exhaustive explanation Microsoft File

Services is beyond the scope of this Technical Brief, LaCie encour-

ages users and network administrators to further their understanding

via the numerous books, instruction manuals, courses, and web sites

on this subject.

2. Administrator

In order to review, conﬁrm, or redeﬁne the software settings on your

LaCie professional server, you must have Administrative rights to the

device.

Click a topic:

✦Namespaces (DFS-N)

✦Replication (DFS-R)

✦Create the Namespace

✦DFS-R Setup

Quick Links

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 4

3. Distributed File System

(DFS)

A network administrator uses a distributed ﬁle system (DFS) to main-

tain and share the numerous ﬁles stored on the company server(s).

Important functions such as data security, permissions, and acces-

sibility are integrated into the DFS.

A key feature for Windows Storage Server 2008 is DFS Manage-

ment, a role service that is part of Windows Server File Services.

This document highlights two key role services that are part of DFS

Management:

✦DFS Namespaces (DFS-N)

✦DFS Replication (DFS-R)

TECHNICAL NOTE: File Services DFS-N and DFS-R must be in-

stalled on your LaCie professional server before creating Namespaces

and enabling replication. Go to Server Manager > Roles > Add

Role Services. Select the role services Distributed File System and

click Install.

3.1. Namespaces (DFS-N)

During the course of a business day, a user must access multiple

ﬁles from many servers that may populate multiple domains on a

network. A user may search through a list of Shared folders that are

mounted on his workstation as network drives. Shared folders con-

tain the data that users must access to complete their projects. One

can imagine how tiring it is for the user to spend much of his day

ﬁltering through numerous network drives to ﬁnd the ﬁles required

for a task at hand. (For additional information on Shared folders,

please see Technical Brief: Shared Folders)

However, placing Shared folders speciﬁc to a user in one mounted

network drive would help ease the burden of combing through mul-

tiple servers. The Namespace, a virtual location for important folders

and documents, becomes the sole network drive seen by the user.

While Namespaces are ideal for large networks, they are more than

useful for smaller conﬁgurations with limited or single domains. In

fact, most administrators may ﬁnd that Namespaces allow for easier

ﬁle management for the users and more efﬁcient network perfor-

mance.

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 5

3.1.1. Namespace Example - Branch Ofﬁce

A company called LaCie has ofﬁces in Paris and New York. The net-

work administrator wants to provide access to data stored in Paris to

the branch in New York and vice-versa. However, there are growing

concerns that employee assets and time are being wasted as users

in both ofﬁces manually search through numerous server volumes

for important ﬁles.

The Paris ofﬁce has heavy network storage demands. In addition to

the Active Domain (AD) server that acts as the domain controller,

the administrator has two LaCie 12big Rack Networks for storage.

The New York ofﬁce has just installed a LaCie 5big Storage Server.

Since LaCie professional servers are powered by Windows Storage

Server 2008, they can receive critical user and permission instruc-

tions from Windows Server Active Directory. In the domain lacie.

com, the administrator adds Shared folders based upon business

unit and geography (Accounting Americas and Accounting Europe,

Marketing Americas and Marketing Europe, Software Development

Americas and Software Development Europe, etc.). Users may cre-

ate individual folders within each Shared folder to properly organize

individual documents (budget spreadsheets, corporate presenta-

tions, etc.).

Branch business units must have access to the data of their overseas

counterparts in order to avoid waste and needless duplication. That

is, New York Accounting must see the latest data from Paris Ac-

counting and Paris Accounting must see the New York Accounting

ﬁles.

As well, department managers require data from other business

units.

An administrator will receive the data storage requirements for each

department to plan for optimal network organization. He will create

one Namespace for the company, making it easier for users. Access

to data is based upon permissions granted to users on a Shared

folder basis.

TECHNICAL NOTE: A Namespace appears as a network volume

to the user. An administrator assigns Shared folders to a Namespace

based upon the data needs of the user(s).

The following two tables (Table 02 - LaCie Shared and Data Folders

and Table 03 - A Single Namespace with Folder Hierarchy) offer

small samplings of the Shared folders and data folders stored on

the LaCie professional servers that the administrator must manage.

continued on the next page>>

Table 01 - Folder Types

Folder Type Use

Shared Folder A Shared folder has many features, including a

directory for data folders. Please see Technical

Brief: Shared Folders for further information.

Target Folder A virtual folder that links to Shared folders as-

signed by the administrator.

Tree Folder A virtual folder used in DFS to organize folders

and data. It can contain Target folders or other

Tree folders.

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 6

Table 02 - LaCie Shared and Data Folders

LaCie 12big Rack Network (x2) - Paris 5big Storage Server - New York

Shared Folders

✦Data Folders

Accounting Europe

✦Accounts Payable Europe

✦Accounts Receivable Europe

✦Projected Budgets Europe

✦Accounts Budgetary Planning Europe

Accounting Americas

✦Accounts Payable Americas

✦Accounts Receivable Americas

✦Projected Budgets Americas

✦Accounts Budgetary Planning Americas

Shared Folders

✦Data Folders

Marketing Europe

✦Product Testing Europe

✦Product Road Maps Europe

✦Products in Development Europe

✦Top Secret Products Europe

✦Marketing Budgetary Planning Europe

Marketing Americas

✦Product Testing Americas

✦Product Road Maps Americas

✦Products in Development Americas

✦Top Secret Products Americas

✦Marketing Budgetary Planning Americas

Shared Folders

✦Data Folders

Software Development Europe

✦Project Manager Reports Europe

✦Alpha Programs Europe

✦Beta Programs Europe

✦Release Candidates Europe

✦Dev Budgetary Planning Europe

Software Development Americas

✦Project Manager Reports Americas

✦Alpha Programs Americas

✦Beta Programs Americas

✦Release Candidates Americas

✦Dev Budgetary Planning Americas

Shared Folders

✦Data Folders

Creative Services Europe

✦Illustrations Europe

✦Ads Europe

✦Logos Europe

✦Documentation Europe

✦CS Budgetary Planning Europe

Creative Services Americas

✦Illustrations Americas

✦Ads Americas

✦Logos Americas

✦Documentation Americas

✦CS Budgetary Planning Americas

Shared Folders

✦Data Folders

Common Resources Europe

✦Travel Expenses Europe

✦PR Presentations Europe

✦IT Documentation Europe

✦Training Europe

Common Resources Americas

✦Travel Expenses Americas

✦PR Presentations Americas

✦IT Documentation Americas

✦Training Americas

continued on the next page>>

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 7

Seeing so many Shared folders, it is very easy to understand why a

Namespace would help with ﬁle management and data security.

Noting the list of Shared folders in Table 02 - LaCie Shared and Data

Folders, a salaried employee who works in accounting must use

ﬁles from three Shared folders: Accounting Americas, Accounting

Europe, and Common Resources (Fig. 01).

Fig. 01

continued on the next page>>

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 8

An accounting manager must use ﬁles in eight of the ten Shared

folders: Accounting Americas, Accounting Europe, Marketing Amer-

icas, Marketing Europe, Software Development Americas, Software

Development Europe, and Creative Services (Fig. 02).

Fig. 02

The amount of Shared folders becomes somewhat unwieldy for the

employees as they attempt to hunt for ﬁles located in numerous net-

work volumes. It is far more efﬁcient to limit the mounted drives.

In our example, we can create a single Namespace to contain the

company ﬁles.

continued on the next page>>

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 9

Table 03 - A Single Namespace with Folder Hierarchy

Namespace Tree Folder Target Folders Shared Folder Server Location

LaCie_Files Accounting ✦Americas ✦Accounting Americas ✦5BIGSTORAGE (New York)

✦Europe ✦Accounting Europe ✦12BIGNETWORK-1 (Paris)

Common

Resources

✦Americas ✦Common Resources Americas ✦5BIGSTORAGE (New York)

✦Europe ✦Common Resources Europe ✦12BIGNETWORK-2 (Paris)

Creative

Services

✦Americas ✦Creative Services Americas ✦5BIGSTORAGE (New York)

✦Europe ✦Creative Services Europe ✦12BIGNETWORK-2 (Paris)

Marketing ✦Americas ✦Marketing Americas ✦5BIGSTORAGE (New York)

✦Europe ✦Marketing Europe ✦12BIGNETWORK-1 (Paris)

Software

Development

✦Americas ✦Software Development Americas ✦5BIGSTORAGE (New York)

✦Europe ✦Software Development Europe ✦12BIGNETWORK-2 (Paris)

With the single Namespace LaCie_Files acting as a virtual volume,

all LaCie employees mount only one network drive. This is very help-

ful when users search for their data since there is no need to hunt

through a series of mounted network volumes. For the administrator,

management is simpliﬁed due to a single network drive for every-

one. Access to ﬁles is granted when a Shared folder is created.

As Table 03 - A Single Namespace with Folder Hierarchy demon-

strates, LaCie_Files provides easy access to Shared folders that are

dispersed among all three LaCie professional servers in New York

and Paris.

continued on the next page>>

LaCie Professional Server DFS-N & DFS-R

Technical Brief: DFS page 10

In Fig. 03, the DFS Management window lists the Tree folders and

their Target folders.

Fig. 03

continued on the next page>>

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