There are several options for file sharing. CIFS is a MS Windows network filesystem, for which the "samba" server and client can be used on Linux hosts. NFS is the filesystem generally used between Linux servers.
NFS servers and clients are available for MS Windows, but they aren't free, and are somewhat annoying to set up. We highly recommend the samba server, which needs only minor setup by a Linux server administrator. XXX details.
NFS server software for MS Windows servers is available, but it isn't free and is somewhat annoying to set up. We highly recommend using the Linux smb client program to access CIFS filesystems exported by MS Windows servers. Using the smbclient is somewhat tricky to do securely, but the same is true for NFS. XXX example.