difference between celerra cifs server netbios name and compname

Hi,

a) what is the difference between these two.

b) When to use a netbios name and when to use a compname or use both?

"compnames" are used for W2K, W2K3 CIFS servers, while "netbios" are used for WinNT CIFS servers.

c) I see that the procedure to rename a cifs server name involves creating a netbios name, then rename it and then create compname. Why?.

I think it's a DART design. Only WinNT CIFS servers can be renamed, that's why we need to turn them to WinNT servers, rename, and turn them back to W2K/W2K3 servers.

The primus emc156835 has this note :

" There is no direct way to simply "rename" a Celerra compname from one name to another; you must use the following procedure. This procedure allows a compname to be removed from the domain; creates a new CIFS NetBIOS name; undergoes a NetBIOS rename operation that re-indexes the server database to preserve the Data Mover’s shares, LocalGroups security context, and folder/file permissions on file systems; deletes the NetBIOS name and then re-adds and joins the new compname back to Active Directory.  This procedure can be safely applied to regular CIFS Servers and CIFS Servers that are members of VDM containers.  When using the following procedure, please note that NetBIOS names cannot be longer than 15 characters. "

Gustavo Barreto.

Thanks Gustavo for your response. Very helpful.

My main intention to use the rename feature is for migration without using VDM. Please let me know if this will this work: i need to migrate cifs server prodboxA from one site to another. (This server has local groups.). Plan is to create a new cifs server called prodboxB at destination and join to domain, copy all the FS using celerra replicator, copy all local groups and shares using lgdup and sharedup, then take prodboxA at source site offline and rename prodboxB to prodboxA using the standard EMC rename procedure.