DFS - Primary Server and Fall Back Server?

[daveh777]

Hi folks,

can I setup a DFS so that users connect to one server (primary) update or change their data, then that change gets replicated to a fall back server, then when the primary server goes down users are automatically connected to the fall back server?

From what I know of DFS all you can do is setup DFS then users will connect to either one of the servers, problem with this is if one user updates a file while another user has the same file open but from another server then DFS will only keep one copy of the file, resulting in one of the users loosing the data they entered into the file. This will not work for me as I use a lot of databases stored on the server and they get accessed frequently.

cheers
Dave

 

[fissidens]

I don't know whether this will help you at all but the system we use is to have 2 servers A and B. The main user files are on A, and these are replicated to B every few hours using Robocopy. Then set up DFS so that the links are to both locations but only enable referrals to A.

To switch servers you go into DFS and change referrals to B and also change the Robocopy script to replicate the other way. I have automated this last part in the script but I don't know how to automate the DFS referrals.

BTW, we tried FRS but it gave lots of trouble, possibly because of the amount of date we were replicating (20GB).

Anyway, best of luck, and if you do find a better solution please let us all know!