DCE Distributed File Service
Distributed systems can provide many advantages over centralized systems, such as higher availability of data and resources, the ability to share information throughout a very large (even worldwide) system, and efficient use of special computing functionality.
A distributed file system is an example of an application that can take advantage of all of these aspects of a distributed system. It can make files highly available through replication, making it possible to access a copy of a file even if one of the machines on which the file is stored goes down. A distributed file system can provide access to files from anywhere in the world, allowing cooperation among geographically dispersed users. A distributed file system can also give users on machines with very little storage space the ability to access and store data on machines with much more disk space available.
DCE DFS is a distributed client/server application built on the underlying DCE services. It takes full advantage of the lower-level DCE components (such as RPC, the security service, and the directory service). The following subsections describe DFS and the configuration of its components, and they provide various user perspectives on DFS.
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