DFS Backup

Distributed File System, or DFS, is one of MicroSoft's better ideas for consolidating all the file shares within an enterprise into a common file structure or namespace.  DFS gives the Network Administrator the freedom to balance data shares across servers as the need arises without impacting the use population.  It is well worth looking into this technology if you have not done so already.

DFS Namespace's can either be stand alone or Active Directory integrated, the later being the desired option within a large enterprise as it affords better namespace redundancy and control.

As with any system, backing it up on a regular basis is a must, DFS has a few command line tools for backing up a single DFS namespace, but how do you backup multiple DFS namespace's across an entire enterprise in only a few minutes?  Our new DFS Backup tool fits this bill perfectly.

As soon as the tool starts, it will query Active Directory to find all the Domain based DFS namespace's and lists them.  All of the namespace's can be selected, or just select the ones you wish to backup.  One namespace, ISS-DFS, is visible in this example screen shot.  

Clicking the Backup button will create a text file, ISS-DFS.TXT in the directory C:\dfsbackup.  This text file is fully compatible with the MicroSoft's command line tool DFSCMD.EXE in the event you wish to use it to restore links back into the namespace.

Restoring DFS links back to the namespace is just as easy as backing them up.  Simply click on the Restore button and select the backup file to restore from.The Restore window will let you pick and choose which links, or all of them, to restore.  Once your selection is made, click the Restore button on this window and you commands will be carried out.

All restore activities are logged to a status file for later examination if need be

DFSBackup is fast, one of our customers has 60+ DFS namespace's in North America, DFSBackup can back up all the DFS namespace's in under one minute giving them peace of mind that they are not only covered from catastrophic failures, but also what happens if an admin deletes a link by mistake?  It can be restores within minutes limiting their customers down time.

Command line

DFSBackup can be driven at the command line for those that wish to schedule regular DFS backups.

     dfsbackup {prefix} {outputpath}

For example:

dfsbackup  Monday_ c:\dfsbackup
dfsbackup  Tuesday_ c:\dfsbackup
dfsbackup  Wednesday_ c:\dfsbackup

The prefix is added to the beginning of the backup file name so that the resulting files in C:\dfsbackup will be
Monday_ISS-DFS.txt, Tuesday_ISS-DFS.txt and so on.  Of course ISS-DFS is the name of our DFS namespace, but the actual name of the DFS namespace being backed up will be used instead.  

During command line operation all DFS namespace's are backup up automatically, there is never the need to modify any files as namespace's are added or deleted from Active Directory.

Please note that DFSBackup does not require the dfscmd.exe utility to operate.