Part 1
Communication in the corporate world becomes more demanding every day.
Companies need to deliver, share and manage their data and resources
in an efficient way to support their many workers scattered across
multiple buildings, cities, states and even countries. More and more
corporations are successfully overcoming these demands by joining
their individual clustered Local Area Networks into a single Wide Area
Network (WAN).
If Wide
Area Networking sounds like a solution for your corporate
connectivity, Windows 2000 Advanced Servers may be your answer.www.tartoos.com
Understanding Windows 2000
Networking
With the advent of Windows 2000 Advanced
Server, Microsoft has changed their hierarchy of networking and
servers. They no longer have Primary Domain Controllers, Back-up
Domain Controllers and Member Servers. Now it's Domain Forests, Domain
Trees and Child Domain Controller Forests with their Domain Trees,
nestled within larger Domain Forests.
The
first domain controller installed in a Windows 2000 network creates a
new Domain Forest. This domain controller contains the Global Catalog
of all other domain controllers (or Domain Trees) within its forest.
Bi-directional transitive trusts and replication are automatically
implemented when new domain controllers are added to the forest via
Active Directory. All domain controllers within the forest maintain a
hierarchy of contiguous name space.
Here's
an example:
Confusing? I myself think Bill ate one too many bowls of Grape Nuts
:)
Implementation Considerations and Recommendations
Since Windows 2000 networking relies on a hierarchy of contiguous
domain name space, some planning of your WAN is advisable. Many
corporations use departmental or location schemes. The first server or
root server would have a name/domain such as: main.microsoft.com. Your
second server could be: sales.microsoft.com, the third:
accounting.microsoft.com etc. Naturally, you would choose whatever
domain and server names you would like, or use your existing domain
name presence on the Internet.www.tartoos.com
In creating a WAN using Windows 2000 Server, I would not recommend
using a broadband DSL or Cable connection, only a fully secure T1, T3,
OC3 or faster backbone connection with static IP's. Windows 2000
Servers Active Directory creates bi-directional transitive trusts,
which are required to create a true WAN between servers in Native mode
(Windows 2000 only). Active Directory is used for replication of
computer accounts, user accounts, securities, permissions, DNS
Services for computer and domain name resolution and Server
Management, just to name a few. Don't even try this if you have
dynamic IP addresses or if your servers have different network ID's.www.tartoos.com
Hardware Compatibility, Partitioning and File System.
Before you start this installation, there are a few other things you
need to take into consideration. Hardware requirements, compatibility
issues, partitioning and the type of file system you will use. You can
be sure your hardware is Windows 2000 compatible by checking
Microsoft's HCL list. http://www.microsoft.com/hcl/default.asp Windows
2000 is not nearly as finicky as NT 4.0.
Microsoft's Minimum Requirementswww.tartoos.com
...also known as a pipe dream...
-
CPU Pentium Class
166+ Intel CPU.
-
Memory 64MB+
-
Hard Disk 1GB+ on
the system partition for Intel-based systems.
-
CD-ROM 12X Speed+
for normal install (not needed for network install).
-
One or more
network interface cards.
Needless to say, these minimum hardware requirements would make your
servers crawl and very soon run out of disk space. In fact I don't
know how Microsoft expects you to get a basic install on 1GB of disk
space as mine have taken up 1.5GB. I would recommend a minimum of 3GB
for the system partition.
Realistic Minimum
Requirements
Here is what I
would recommend for minimum hardware:
-
CPU Pentium Class
500+
-
Memory 256MB+
-
Hard Disk 3GB+ on
the system partition.
-
CD-ROM 48X Speed.
-
TX10/100mbps+
network interface card.
One other recommendation would be the installation and configuration
with only one NIC in each server until you are satisfied with Active
Directory and DNS Services. For further information go to the Windows
2000 and DNS article.
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