Did you know you can Cascade DFS Namespaces?

This is one thing I didn’t know until today and I think it’s pretty cool! Why?

For example, we have a global corporate DFS namespace:

\\lab.priv\DFS

With a folder:

\\lab.priv\DFS\testshare that points to \\NASVM01-DATA1.lab.priv\testshare

But we want to give delegated permissions to a subset of this namespace (specifically, in this example, anything on NetApp) without changing the original DFS path, so we create a new namespace:

\\lab.priv\NA

And create a folder:

\\lab.priv\NA\testshare that points to \\NASVM01-DATA1.lab.priv\testshare

Then we simply change our original DFS folder:

\\lab.priv\DFS\testshare to point to \\lab.priv\NA\testshare instead!

Image 1: \\lab.priv\DFS\testshare pointing to \\lab.priv\NA\testshare

Image 2: \\lab.priv\NA\testshare pointing to \\NASVM01-DATA1.lab.priv\testshare

And test our \\lab.priv\DFS\testshare works via \\lab.priv\NA\testshare to get to \\NASVM01-DATA1.lab.priv\testshare and it does:

C:\Users\netappadmin>net use Z: \\lab.priv\DFS\testshare

The command completed successfully.

Then our DFS Administrator can delegate permissions for \\lab.priv\NA to a NetApp Administrator to control updating DFS links (such as adding a disabled secondary DR path, and/or flipping from a primary path to secondary path in the event of a DR failover situation.)

Image 3: DFS Delegate Management Permissions...