DFS Client Replica selection

[John L Magee]

We are in the process of creating DFS Link Replicas in a remote Data Center.
The "primary" replica is in our main office.. Several of the replicas are
30-40GB. The locations are connected by T1 and are not in fact very far
apart. The time required to complete the replication would not be a problem
except I cannot figure out how to keep the clients from selecting the remote
before full replication is completed. I've seen hints here in the past that
there is some algorithm for this but cannot find any KB articles.

It would also be useful to try to force the clients to use the local copy as
long as it is available.

I've defined Sites in Active Directory for all of our sub-nets and assigned
costs as best I can understand them. There are no Domain Controllers at the
remote site, only in the main office, if that affects anything.

Advice would be appreciated.

jlm

 

[Daniel Billingsley]

You can keep the new replica offline until the replication is complete. In
other words, a link replica can participate in replication without being
available for client connections. It's a cool feature I didn't see at first
either.

Clients will use a DFS target in the same site before crossing sites by
default.