CIFS Server in Domain

Hi,

The cifs server will act as a another other host in the domain.

I would suggest you to go through the CIFS manual from powerlink for clear understanding on how CIFS on Celerra works:

Home > Support > Technical Documentation and Advisories > Hardware/Platforms Documentation > Celerra Network Server > General Reference

Sameer

In regards to the replication side of things, you'll want to read the docs for Using Celerra Replicator.  It will clarify things, in regards to how filesystems are replicated and how using VDMs (Virtual Data Movers) allows you to replicate entire CIFS server environments.

Assuming you are not replicating VDMs today, there is no easy way to share out FS02 at the DR site with the hostname of FS01 - unless, of course, you rename FS02 to FS01 for a short time.  If you create a VDM on the production Celerra and move FS01 into it, you can replicate that VDM to the DR side and failover FS01 - it will pick up the same hostname on the DR side.

Thank You Karl.

In a real world scenario, how do we implement the Windows File servers? What are the decision pioints on chosing VDM? Appreciate if you can point me the some technical documentation.

Tha above link does not work. Could you point me to the correct url.

The normal Celerra/VNX manuals for CIFS, VDM and Replicator are a good start

Typically the choice of when to create a new VDM or CIFS server depends:

- Different domain joined

- Different settings (VDM level vs. DM level)

- Security – one VDM cannot “see” other VDM’s storage

- Failover granularity – failing over just one VDM

Otherwise – use common sense – strike a balance between functionality and manageability

I am sorry for confusion, its not the link, login to powerlink.emc.com and traverse through the location mentioned above to find the CIFS manual.(configuring and Managing CIFS on Celerra)

Probably the best document to start with include Configuring VDMs on Using CIFS on Celerra and Configuring and Managing CIFS on Celerra.  These documents spell out the details of setting up a CIFS environment on your Celerra.  As far as decision points, there are many.  First, are you looking to be able to replicate your CIFS environment from one Celerra to another?  A VDM makes this easy.  Next, are looking to share filesystems via both CIFS and NFS (multiprotocol)?  A VDM can make this complicated, or at the very least, give you more things to consider/steps to take, etc.

VDMs are essentially containers that hold all of the CIFS information - CIFS servers, share info, local users/groups, etc.  Without a VDM, this information exists in the configuration file on the physical datamover (server_2, server_3, etc.).  As such, it is harder to copy/move/replicate that information.  But, with VDMs, that information is stored in the container, and can be easily moved between physical datamovers or replicated to remote datamovers.

So the short answer is, if you're looking to replicate your CIFS environment (or even make it easier to move to future Celerra or VNX), consider implementing VDMs.