It is important to note that DNS is NOT an alternative way to look at your Directory Services Domains (that is there is no Browser or Netlogon support and so forth).
White Paper
Special thanks to the following people for their help in this project:
Azfar Moazzam; James Gilroy; Dan Perry; Jim Harrison; Dave Macdonald; Steven Judd; Prakash Narasimhamurthy; Margaret Johnson; Rodger Seabourne
The use of the Domain Name System (DNS) service in the Microsoft
Windows NT 4.0 operating system is optional.
The DNS service that ships with Windows NT 4.0 is there if you need to use it, however there is nothing in Windows NT Directory Services today that requires it. We would like you to start using it for typical DNS-type activity.
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It is important to note that DNS is NOT an alternative way to look at your Directory Services Domains (that is there is no Browser or Netlogon support and so forth). |
If you choose to use DNS, this paper shows you how you may want to design your DNS infrastructure today in preparation for the future release of Windows NT Enhanced Directory Services (DS).
What we are about to experience is a paradigm shift. Up until today, the group using Windows NT within a company could play in their own world and design Windows NT domains, trusts, user accounts, shares, and so on. The Windows NT groups never had to worry about the Directory Services world—there was usually some other group within the company that worried about X.500, DNS, and similar services. With the onset of the Enhanced DS, which is slated to be in the next major version of Windows NT, this will change and these two groups will have to work together. This will be important because the Enhanced DS will be similar to X.500 and will use DNS to locate servers providing these Directory Services. That is why this paper is important. It will allow the groups using Windows NT to gain an understanding of the other Directory Services that are available. This paper is intended to help these two groups understand each others needs so that a smooth migration to enhanced Directory Services can occur.
This paper will first define the DNS technology (this is an important section for anyone that is new to DNS). It will then take a look at the Microsoft specific DNS (in this section, we talk about why the Microsoft DNS solution is the correct choice for a Microsoft or mixed environment), it will then go over some architectures (this section is important for anyone that is about to design a DNS solution) and last, will talk about the future of Windows NT (this is an important section for everyone to read).
We hope you enjoy this paper and find it of value. If you have any comments concerning the contents of this document, please e-mail Scott Suhy (scottsu@microsoft.com) or Glenn Wood (glennwo@microsoft.com) with Microsoft Corporation.
Before we examine the Microsoft implementation of DNS, it is important for the reader to know a little bit about the history of DNS. If you are already familiar with DNS and its functionality, you may want to skip past this section of the paper and go directly to "Implementing DNS using Windows NT 4.0."