The operation of Distributed Disk Services is transparent to the user. The system automatically determines when to useDDS to access documents in a Disk Group copy. The following is a description of how Distributed Disk Services is used by OnBase.
When the OnBase Client module launches, it queries the database for a list of configured DDS servers and then attempts to create a connection to each DDS server. If this initial connection is successful, the Client module obtains that DDS server's workstation name, DNS name, and IP address. These values are used later to associate Disk Group copies with the DDS server. OnBase does not query for available servers again after this initial process.
The traditional Windows access methods are first used when initially accessing a file, including the OnBase.ID file, on a Disk Group copy. These include UNC paths, local drive letters, and mapped drive letters. If this initial Windows access fails, then DDS access is attempted on a DDS server that matches the server name of the UNC path to the workstation name, the DNS name, or the IP address retrieved from the DDS servers at startup. If DDS access is successful, DDS access will continue to be used for subsequent retrievals from, and archives to, that file server for all Disk Group copies residing on that file server.