This week at TechEd 2011 I will be delivering a presentation about “Windows Server 2008 R2 File Services Consolidation - Technology Update”.

If you’re attending the conference in Atlanta-GA, this is session WSV317 on Wednesday at 10:15 AM, plus a repeat on Thursday also at 10:15 AM.

The presentation is divided into 5 main topics: 

  • Overview of the main advances in File Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, compared to Windows Server 2003/2008
  • Examination of 3 interesting file server configurations with 24, 96 and 192 disks using the File Server Capacity Tool (FSCT)
  • How to consolidate file server names, a common issue when retiring multiple file servers into a single, beefier one
  • Leveraging multiple network interfaces on a file server to provide additional bandwidth and network fault tolerance
  • Implementing High Availability for File Services using Failover Clustering and Virtualization

Here’s a complete outline of the presentation:

  • Agenda
    • Session Objectives
    • Scenario Overview
  •  File Server Scalability and Performance
    • Improvements since Windows Server 2003
      • SMB2 and SMB 2.1 improvements
      • Make sure you’re running the right version…
      • CHKDSK Improvements
      • 8.3 naming disabling and stripping
      • DFS Namespace Scalability
      • Multi-threaded ROBOCOPY
      • Scalability Improvement Over Time
    • Sample Configuration – 24 spindles
    • Sample Configuration – 96 spindles
    • Sample Configuration – 192 spindles!
  • File Server Name Consolidation
    • The name consolidation problem
    • Static DNS Entries
    • Alternate Computer Names and Dynamic DNS
    • DFS Consolidation Roots
    • Virtual Machines
    • Failover Clusters
  • File Server Advanced Networking
    • DNS Round Robin
    • SMB2 Durability
    • Multiple IP addresses per cluster name
    • NIC Teaming
    • Sample Multi-NIC File Server Configurations
      • Standalone, single switch, single client NIC – 2nd NIC disabled
      • Standalone, single switch, single client NIC – NIC teaming
      • Standalone, single switch, single client NIC – same subnet
      • Standalone, multiple switches, single client NIC
      • Standalone, router, single client NIC
      • Standalone, multiple switches, multiple client NICs
      • Cluster, router, single client NIC
      • Cluster, multiple switches, multiple client NICs
  • File Server High Availability
    • Multi-site DFS and Offline Files
    • Single-site DFS
    • Cluster - Active/Passive vs. Multi-Active
    • File Server Cluster – FC SAN
    • File Server Cluster – SAS Array
    • File Server Cluster – iSCSI SAN
    • Virtual File Server – DFS
    • Virtual File Server, Host Cluster
    • Virtual File Server, Guest Cluster
  • Review: Session Objectives

The two demos include SMB2 durability, SQL over SMB2, the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target and a Failover Cluster with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 File Services.

Looking forward to seeing you there... And also at the Windows Server booth for File Services (WSV 13).

P.S.: You can now listen to a recording of this presentation at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/WSV317
I also posted information about the demo used in this presentation at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2011/05/19/teched-2011-demo-install-step-by-step-hyper-v-ad-dns-iscsi-target-file-server-cluster-sql-server-over-smb2.aspx