Preparing Your Network Infrastructure for Windows 2000
Preparing Your Network Infrastructure for Windows 2000 |
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You might be deploying Windows 2000 into a mixed-mode environment, or you might eventually move to a native Windows 2000 network. The planning you do in "Designing the Active Directory Structure" and "Determining Domain Migration Strategies"later in this book, for example, will be helpful when you implement or upgrade your IP addressing plan in conjunction with your Active Directory planning.
You have already identified your infrastructure servers — the primary and backup domain controllers, DNS, DHCP, WINS and other servers that comprise your infrastructure. Verify that your hardware drivers are available for Windows 2000. If the drivers or equipment you use are not on the HCL, check with the manufacturer for updated drivers, or test them yourself to determine compatibility with Windows 2000.
Previous versions of Windows NT and many third-party DNS servers cannot synchronize dynamically with DHCP, and therefore cannot maintain up-to-date associations between names and IP addresses. For this reason, consider upgrading your DNS services to Windows 2000–compatible DNS. Windows 2000 DNS automatically updates DNS record fields, thereby reducing the need for manual updating that was required previously.
When you are considering upgrading your network, consider the placement of your DHCP servers in regard to the number and size of geographical sites on your network and the speed and reliability of its WAN links. DHCP traffic between remote sites requires an improvement in the bandwidth and reliability of the link between sites. For more information about this topic, see "Determining Network Connectivity Strategies" in this book.
If you plan to support clients that resolve IP addressing using NetBIOS requests, you will continue to need WINS to resolve computer names to IP addresses. In general,
Windows 2000 DHCP offers multimedia support through enhanced monitoring, a management snap-in, and support for multicasting. Windows 2000 DHCP is also dynamically integrated with Windows 2000 DNS in support of Active Directory. Older versions of DNS do not offer this support, and you should consider upgrading if you plan to deploy Active Directory or want to use Network Load Balancing to balance demand on your DHCP servers.
Installing Windows 2000 Routing and Remote Access servers is necessary for LAN-to-LAN and secure VPN links and remote access. Routing and Remote Access is integrated into Windows 2000, and supports a variety of other protocols, such as IPX/SPX and AppleTalk.
If you are deploying Windows 2000 in a mixed environment with UNIX systems, note the version of BIND that exists on your system. While Windows 2000 is fully compatible with earlier versions of BIND, it offers improved DNS functionality with BIND versions 4.9.4 and later.