Introduction to File and Print Services
Is This for You? This document set is written to meet the requirements of IT professionals who are responsible for the planning, design, deployment, and operations of file and print services in an enterprise environment. The readers of this document set are expected to have an understanding of its technical details; however, service-level expertise is not needed to follow the enterprise-level discussions and to understand the decisions that are made.
On This Page
 | Introduction |
| Blueprint |
| Planning Guide |
| Build Guide |
| Operations Guide |
Introduction
Organizations need to share, store, retrieve, and print information in an efficient, cost-effective, secure, and reliable manner. Information may exist in the form of static files, such as large format architectural drawings and external brochures, software code and executables, plans and presentations, pictures and spreadsheets. Information may also take the form of dynamic data such as databases, event logs, or captured video streams. In each case, information exists as collections of files and is managed accordingly. As the amount of data increases, the cost of storage and maintenance also increases due to administrative and hardware overheads. A number of studies have shown how data growth continues to be exponential while the resources available for managing data remain flat or the area reduced. It is important to ensure that users can access data quickly and easily and that it can be managed efficiently. Organizations also need to be able to publish and print information in hard copy format, whether for legal, business, or personal requirements. They need to print on multiple devices having multiple attributes at different times of the day. They must also provide users with the ability to find and use printers easily without requesting assistance from the IT support organization. In addition, printing assets need to be managed securely and kept online and available at the same time. File and print services are critical for users and applications within information technology (IT) environments. However, these services are often ignored during the IT infrastructure design phase, which leads to environments where printer and file repositories appear in ad hoc fashion without clear strategies for their management. Planning for these services is vital; requirements of the users and applications need to be assessed and available technologies matched to the requirements in order to provide a supportable package of technologies and services.
Further information about design and deployment of file and print services may be found at the following URLs:
| • | Further information on SMB can be found at the following URL: |
| • | Information on deploying file and print services can be found in the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Deployment Kit at the following URL: |
| • | Further information on WebDAV can be found at the following URL |
| • | For information on the deployment and best practices for Windows Server 2003 printing services see the following URL: |
Blueprint
This blueprint provided a practical process for the successful selection of file and print services to be used in an enterprise organization. It analyzed various design choices for these services and mapped them to existing technologies. It also presented the main features and benefits of each technology, together with its advantages and disadvantages for the different roles it may serve within the organization. For file services, the primary technologies are Distributed File System (DFS), File Replication Service (FRS), Encrypting File System (EFS), and the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). The primary method discussed for achieving file services was DFS, which offers a flexible file management solution for the enterprise. For print services, design options are based on where the printers should be connected and how they should be managed. This blueprint also evaluated aspects of the different technologies for providing availability, security, scalability, and manageability for different types of file and print service instances. Using the service details provided in this blueprint, a comprehensive file and print solution can be designed.
Planning Guide
This guide provided details of the designs for file and print services used in the CDC and SBO scenarios. The File and Print Services Blueprint should be used in parallel with this guide to help understand the options that were considered during the design process.
Build Guide
The file service build guidance provided in this guide outlined the procedures necessary to deploy the DFS service, create the DFS namespace, and deploy and initially configure the Active/Active File cluster. File services should be created across FFL-NA-PRN-01 and FFL-NA-PRN-02 to ensure that the load is distributed evenly between the two cluster groups. File service test guidance in this guide provided information about how different file service functionalities were tested, including Shadow Copying, DFS Shares, and Replications. The test data was captured and is available for reference as stated earlier. File service tests were also run in combination with the other services to ensure its appropriate behavior when integrated tightly into the whole Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The print service build guidance provided in this guide described how to deploy print services and how to deploy and initially configure the Active/Active Print cluster. Print services should be created across FFL-NA-PRN-01 and FFL-NA-PRN-02 to ensure that the load for print services is distributed evenly between the two cluster groups. Print service test guidance in this guide provided detailed descriptions of the actual processes of testing the print services in the WSSRA configuration. First, details were given for installing and configuring the associated tools. Information was then provided about using them and how they worked was provided. Finally, information about reviewing the test case specifications and a discussion of the test results was provided.
Operations Guide
This guide helps the readers understand the extent of operations guidance that is available for the file and print services discussed in WSSRA. This guidance has been tested in a WSSRA environment and the project team deferred to this guidance as the authoritative source of operations content.