File storage needs exist for any organization of any size. Whether we are talking about simple document storage for your team of users to utilize or something like block storage accessed over a network by a high performance computing environment, you are going to have servers in your network that are responsible for storing data safely and securely. The File Services role has grown significantly over the years as our storage needs have changed and evolved. Many of us can no longer satisfy the data needs for our environments with simple file shares and physical disks. Let's use this chapter to explore some of the more interesting ways that data can be managed in a Windows Server 2016 environment:
- Enabling Distributed File System and creating a Namespace
- Configuring Distributed File System Replication
- Creating an iSCSI target on your server
- Configuring an iSCSI initiator connection
- Configuring Storage Spaces
- Turning on data deduplication
- Setting up Windows Server 2016 work folders
I read last year that the Internet carries more than 1,800 petabytes of information every day. That is an incredible number! As all of that data comes and goes, it is easy in this day and age to think of this information as being stored in the cloud, a magic box in the sky. All of that data is sitting somewhere though. On hard drives, installed inside servers, sitting inside datacenters. All this talk about the cloud has really morphed for companies into talk about private clouds, and when you break it down, what they are really talking about is different ways to provide a centralized group of information to users that may be accessing it from various places. There are numerous technologies baked into Server 2016 that can assist with the centralization and securing of your data, so let's explore a few of them together.