Inside Windows® Server 2003

Resource Sharing Using the Distributed File System (Dfs)

Networks are confusing places for the average end user. To tell users that their files are “on the network” is like telling them, “There's a $10 bill waiting for you somewhere in Chicago.”

Figure 16.9 shows a typical set of network resources. Connecting to these shared resources requires mapping a network drive at the clients. Organizations spend lots of time and energy and ingenuity figuring out how to get a consistent set of drive mappings to their users. The users aren't knowledgeable enough about the network structure to correlate a drive mapping to a server, so these network drives become the servers in the user's mind. You hear this in conversation all the time. “My K drive went down ...