Windows Server® 2012 Unleashed

DFS Namespaces and Replication

This method utilizes Windows folder sharing under a unified namespace. The main difference between standard Windows Server folder sharing and DFS shares is that the actual server name is masked by a unified name, commonly the Active Directory domain name, but in some cases a single server name and share can be used to access data stored on several servers. Also with DFS, the underlying data can be replicated between servers. One limitation of DFS is that the client accessing the DFS namespace must be a DFS-aware client so that it can utilize the benefits of DFS and, in some cases, just to locate and access the data.