Windows Server 2003 R2 Branch Office: Frequently Asked Questions

Branch office is a framework for simplified deployment and management of key server roles that are conceptually optional, disposable, and replaceable. The branch office strategy is best defined as an architecture that accelerates services, provides for service continuity, and is:

To provide full autonomy and uninterrupted productivity at remote locations, Windows Server 2003 R2 branch office framework leverages branch office servers. By deploying or maintaining branch office servers, organizations can capture the production benefits of remote branch servers while harnessing the administrative efficiencies of a centralized management framework. For example, organizations can guarantee that branch productivity continues in the event of a WAN connection failure.

Windows Server 2003 R2 includes several new features specifically designed to ease the management pains associated with branch offices. These features include a new Printer Management Console and a redesigned Distributed File System. These technologies allow organizations to efficiently administer branch office file and print services from a central location.

With the new Printer Management Console, administrators have a single interface for managing all the printers connected to all the print servers within an organization. Through PMC, administrators can monitor printer errors, deploy printer connections to clients, automatically find and install printers on a local branch office subnet, or run printer configuration scripts.

The newly redesigned Distributed File System (DFS) contains state-of-the-art replication, management, and compression technologies that ensure the efficient use of bandwidth. DFS leverages Distributed File System Namespaces, Distributed File System Replication, and Remote Differential Compression as enabling technologies.

Distributed File System Namespaces (DFSN) allows administrators to group shared folders located on different servers and present them to users as a virtual tree of folders known as a "namespace". A namespace provides numerous benefits, including increased availability of data, load sharing, and simplified data migration.

Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R) is a robust multi-master file replication service that is significantly more scalable and efficient in synchronizing file servers than its predecessor, File Replication Services (FRS). DFS-R supports automated recovery from database loss or corruption, scheduling and bandwidth throttling of replication schemes, and multiple replication topologies.

Remote Differential Compression (RDC) is an advanced WAN-compatible compression technology that optimizes data transfers over limited-bandwidth networks. Instead of transferring similar or redundant data repeatedly, RDC accurately identifies changes within and across files ("deltas") and transmits only those changes to achieve bandwidth savings.

In addition to calculating file deltas and transferring only the differences, RDC can also copy any similar file from any client or server to another using data that is common to both computers. This effectively reduces the size of the data sent and the overall bandwidth requirements for file transfers. Local differencing techniques-sometimes called "patching"-compute the differences between two local files, detecting insertions, removals, and rearrangements of data. The differences can then be used to transform the old version to a new version. The differences between two known versions of a file are calculated on a server; and then sent to the client.

As an example, consider the deltas calculated from a simple title change in a three megabyte (MB) PowerPoint presentation. These deltas would take less than a second to replicate over a typical WAN connection in contrast to one minute or longer for the entire file. Microsoft's internal performance testing suggests that bandwidth reduction factors may reach as high as 400:1 using RDC.

Additional branch-related features will be generally available in the Longhorn Server timeframe. Proposed additions include on-demand file replication, file caching with centralized consistency, serverless security patch and update staging, branch office authentication through Active Directory cached mode, and streaming media services.