After seven years of providing robust file service hosted on a NetApp filer, we’ve decided to migrate our services to native Windows File Services. We have encountered several issues with the interaction of newer Windows client operating systems and NetApp’s third-party implementation of CIFS and SMB2.
We did meet with some staff from various units on campus to discuss the current state of file services, especially the current pain points, and outlined our current plans. The main themes that emerged from our discussion were as follows:
- Make the service simpler
- H: drive is just confusing; merge it with My Documents
- The duplicated folders within user profile directory (e.g. c:\users\netid) create lots of confusion. Any way to address this?
- Provide more options (increments) for home directory quotas
- Provide notification to departments regarding storage usage and quotas
We are currently prototyping a new design for our Campus File Services — dare I call it CFSv2 — hosted in a Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster. It’s still early in the process, but the design look promising.
