Dfs one namespace or two server

Question

My question is similar to "Move DFS Namespace" asked Mar 7 2014 by Alex Mckenzie.

I want a fault tolerant server so that users can access folders when one DFS server is not available. So far I have DFS and replication working on both servers. I could access the folder on both server but not using same namespace . I want situation whereby user can access folder using just \domain\files and they will have access to the folder on either servers. So that when one sever is down user can still access folder using the same namespace , but I kept getting this error message "The namespace is not unique in the domain in which the namespce server was created ..." or is there a better way to make \domain\files accessible when one server is not available, not planning failover cluster. All servers is Microsoft 2008 R2 . Thanks

Answer 1

First off - DFS Replication (DFS-R) and DFS Namespace (DFS-N) are not tied together. You can use DFS Namespaces without having data replicated, and you can replicate data without using DFS Namespaces.

It's normal to deploy more than one namespace server. Typically one would install the namespace role on domain controllers, as this will make it easier for users to navigate the share(s).

You only have one namespace domain - your AD domain. What you are trying to achieve is to have more than one namespace server hosting the same namespace, which is a very easy task. Just right-click your namespace and select "add namespace server".