New domain-based namespaces

Aug 14, 2007 11:06 GMT  ·  By

The third beta for Windows Server 2008 went live on April 25 2007, a time when the product was still referred to as Windows Server codename Longhorn. With beta 3, Microsoft hit its first public testing milestone and in approximately four months, the company counted in excess of 250,000 downloads. But Microsoft is still far from wrapping up its last 32-bit server operating system. The fact of the matter is that the Redmond company is now closing in on the date synonymous with the release to manufacturing of Windows Server 2008, but it continues to add features to the product. David Lowe, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Windows Server Division, revealed that Windows Server 2008 will bring to the table new domain-based namespaces.

"The DFS Namespaces team has let me know that they are adding support for domain-based namespaces that exceed the previous size recommendation of 5,000 folders with targets in a namespace. Starting in Windows Server 2008, you will be able to use the DFS Management snap-in to create a new domain-based namespace in [two] modes," Lowe said.

Of course that in order to create Windows Server 2008 mode domain-based namespaces, there are a couple of conditions that have to be met. First off, the domain functional level has to be associated with Windows Server 2008. In addition, the infrastructure hosting the namespaces has to be built exclusively of the Windows Server 2008 servers. Lowe also presented the two modes for domain-based namespace in Windows Server 2008.

"Windows 2000 Server mode provides the same functionality and scalability currently available in namespaces hosted on servers running Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2008 mode provides increased scalability and support for access-based enumeration, which will be configurable using Dfsutil. There are now no hard limits to the size of the namespace - however, we are currently running performance tests to determine guidelines for sizing these new domain-based namespaces for practical performance considerations," he explained.