Planning for Your Domain Model

The domain model you select is based on the number of users in the organization and how you want to manage your organization. In addition, topology and location considerations will influence how domains are specifically implemented and where different resources are physically located.

Designing and building a domain strategy can be a challenging task, since there are few limits in the Windows NT software itself to dictate decision points. Other aspects of the computing environment must be considered to provide guidelines for the choices and decisions needed. This section presents a number of assumptions about the computing environment and discusses the domain models that apply.

• • Even though Windows NT Server implies no limits on the number of users or sessions that can be supported by a single server, the hardware of the server does. The system needs resources to support users logging on. Unless otherwise noted, this paper assumes that the Windows NT Server computer being used as a PDC is a minimum 486/33 class machine with 32 MB of physical RAM memory, and a 1-GB hard disk. The test conditions included base Windows NT Server services, moderate file and print activity, RAS, Microsoft SNA Server, and Microsoft SQL Server.
• • Real-life limits of the Windows NT Server system are beyond the simple capacity of the server. There are certain user expectations that must be satisfied, some under extremely harsh computing environments.
• • The process of design and selection is recursive. Decisions made earlier in the process must be verified in light of information available later in the process. Therefore, you should anticipate making several passes through the process until all decisions match with the information available at all steps.