3.4.0 MxFS for CIFS Administration Guide

Introduction

The MxFS for CIFS (CIFS) Solution Pack and PolyServe Matrix Server

provide scalability and high availability for the Common Internet

FileSystem (CIFS). CIFS is a variation of the Server Message Block (SMB)

protocol. It runs over TCP/IP and is commonly used on Windows systems

to share files remotely.

CIFS file shares can be deployed in two ways: with Virtual CIFS Servers

that provide failover support, or with Matrix File Shares that enable

connection load balancing. In both methods, the data to be shared is

stored on a PSFS filesystem .

Virtual CIFS Servers

A Virtual CIFS Server “virtualizes” the network name and IP address

associated with a particular CIFS service/share. When a Virtual CIFS

Server is created, it is assigned a unique name/IP-address pair. Clients

then access the Virtual CIFS Server via this name/IP address pair instead

of using the network name and IP address of an actual server.

A Virtual CIFS Server is assigned to a primary node and one or more

backup nodes. One or more CIFS file shares are then associated with the

Virtual CIFS Server.

CIFS provides a monitor for each CIFS file share. This monitor

periodically checks the ability of the primary and backup nodes to access

the file share. If the primary node fails or loses its connection to the PSFS

filesystem, the ClusterPulse process (provided with Matrix Server) will

fail over, or migrate, the Virtual CIFS Server to one of the backup servers,