The directory %common% must be located on the shared drive. This may be an external drive connected by SCSI, FireWire or otherwise; it may also be an enabled drive on a file server.

The AFP documents, i.e. the directories %secure% and C:\INetPub\wwwRoot may be located on a shared drive. You can also ensure through appropriate replication that copies of the current data are available to all nodes in the cluster.

The program files in the directories %root%, %root%\C24 and %plugin% should reside locally to allow the updating of individual nodes without having to take all nodes off the net. The same applies to the storage for pre-compiled files – the %cache% directory.

The configuration file and the AFP program directory afp.config must reside locally as they contain computer-specific license data and paths. Errors are always written to the local Windows event log. Additionally, errors can be recorded in a text file. That file, too, may reside on a shared drive. This text file record will not show which machine it comes from.

On a server cluster, AFP is configured as a resource of the type cluster-unaware generic service.