IT professionals at organizations across a wide
range of industries are concerned about having
native Mac support as part of their Distributed
File System (DFS) strategy and infrastructure.
This is according to the results of a new study
announced today by Group Logic
(http://www.grouplogic.com), a provider of
Mac/Windows connectivity solutions and a founding
member of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, an
organization that supports the integration of
Macs into Windows-based environments.

Respondents cited the importance of multiple
aspects of DFS, including file replication and
flexibility in reconfiguring the location of file
shares between servers. The study, conducted with
eMedia USA, surveyed approximately 300 IT
professionals at a wide range of private, public
and non-profit organizations. More than a third
of all organizations (35 percent) said they have
implementation plans for DFS, or are already
underway.

Nearly three-quarters of these organizations (73
percent) have multiple Mac users, and nearly half
(48 percent) are interested in solutions that can
help them integrate Mac users into their DFS
infrastructures. Without a solution that
includes native Mac support for DFS navigation,
these organizations must purchase additional
products to enable the process.
"The study's findings confirm the increased
interest we have seen in the industry for Mac
support for DFS," says T. Reid Lewis, President
and CEO of Group Logic. "These organizations want
cost-effective solutions that will provide them a
single, virtualized namespace for access and
replication of files between globally dispersed
environments."
Respondents indicated several key issues of
importance to their organization's DFS
implementation strategy:

° 71 percent: Data replication between servers;
° 62 percent: The ability to seamlessly move
file shares to a different server; ° 57 percent:
High availability through redundant targets; °
56 percent: The need to spread files sharing load
across multiple servers; ° 38 percent: Site
costing and reduced WAN Traffic; ° 31 percent:
The above benefits for user home directories.