Short for Distributed File System, the collective label for two role services: DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication.
Also called Distributed File System.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains DFS in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Route table label
Name for a set of route tables in Virtual WAN hubs, used when choosing where routes propagate; Default, for instance, covers the defaultRouteTable of every hub.
- Role
How an actor normally or expectedly behaves, or the part a person takes in a process. A single actor may hold more than one role.
- DFS Namespaces
A role service in Windows Server that presents shared folders spread over several servers as a single logical tree (or several), with each folder pointing at one or more targets.
- DFS Replication
A Windows Server role service that keeps folders in step across servers, SYSVOL among them, sending only changed blocks thanks to remote differential compression. It took over from FRS.
Related terms
- Access-based enumeration
When turned on for an SMB share or a DFS namespace, users only see the files, folders and links they're allowed to read; everything else is hidden from them.
- Data lake
Holds files of every kind, structured, semi-structured or unstructured, usually spread over a distributed file system, and lets engines like Spark apply a schema when reading. In Azure this is Data Lake Storage: Blob Storage with a hierarchical namespace enabled.
- Domain-based namespace
A DFS namespace kept in AD DS rather than on one server. Its path begins with the domain name, and more than one namespace server can host it.
- Folder target
Where a DFS namespace folder actually leads: a share's UNC path. Several of them on one folder provide redundancy.
- Namespace root
Where a DFS namespace begins, \\Contoso\Public for example. Domain-based namespaces keep their metadata in AD DS.
- Namespace server
A domain controller or member server hosting a DFS namespace; domain-based namespaces may be hosted on more than one.
- Referral
When a DFS client opens a namespace root or folder, it receives this ordered set of targets and tries them from the top.
- Stand-alone namespace
A DFS namespace whose settings live in one namespace server's registry and whose path is \\ServerName\RootName. The only way to make it highly available is to host it on a failover cluster.