Shariq Sheikh | Port 389

Distributed File System Replication was a major improvement over DFS and FRS, and also an intended seller feature of the R2 of Windows Server 2003. I came across a great article that describes what the DFRS does and how easily it can be setup. In domain environment, prior to installing DFSR the schema must be updated to the R2 version with the ADPREP utility from the CD2 of the Windows Server 2003 R2.

“DFSR is a multimaster replication engine used to distribute copies of data across multiple servers. It can run with or without DFS Namespaces, but its most popular use is to ensure that every member of a set of servers—a replica set—contains identical data and that replication is fast and bandwidth-efficient. It has many features, including bandwidth management, replication scheduling, and an innovative compression algorithm, that together dramatically decrease the amount of network bandwidth needed to keep data synchronized across your network. Microsoft reports that using DFSR results in up to a 300 percent improvement in the speed of large-file replication and 40 percent less administrative time spent managing the replication set.”

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/95223/95223.html