Performance and Scalability

   

Major changes have been made in the way Windows Server 2003 manages the replication and synchronization of Active Directory information. New features have also been added for installation, migration, and maintenance to make Active Directory more flexible, robust, and efficient.

Branch Office Performance

A branch office deployment usually consists of numerous remote offices, each with its own domain controllers ”but with slow links to a corporate hub or data center. Windows Server 2003 improves the logon process for branch offices by no longer requiring access to the central global catalog server each time a user wants to log on. Now organizations do not have to deploy a global catalog server in branch offices where the network is unreliable.

Instead of contacting a global catalog each time a user logs on to a domain controller, the domain controller caches the universal group membership of users who have previously logged on from this site or from off-site global catalog servers when the network was available. Users are then allowed to log on without the need for the domain controller to contact a global catalog server at logon time, which reduces the demand on slow or unreliable networks. This improvement also provides added reliability if a global catalog is unavailable to process logon requests for users.

More Performance Improvements

Additional performance improvements to Active Directory include the following:

  • Disabling compression of intersite replication traffic.

    Replication-traffic compression between domain controllers residing in different sites can be disabled. This can reduce the CPU demand on the domain controllers, thereby increasing performance if needed.

  • Clustered virtual server support.

    A computer object is now defined for clustered servers. Cluster-aware and Active Directory “aware applications can associate their own configuration information with a well-defined object.

  • Concurrent LDAP binds.

    Multiple Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) binds can be performed on the same connection for the purposes of authenticating users. This feature, when utilized by the application developer, vastly improves the performance of LDAP binds and authentication requests against Active Directory.

  • Domain controller overload prevention.

    This feature prevents overloading a first Active Directory domain controller introduced in a domain that already contains a large number of upgraded Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 domain members .

    A Windows NT Server 4 domain contains Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 domain members, including both clients and servers. When a primary domain controller (PDC) is upgraded to Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 (SP2) or upgraded to Windows Server 2003, it can be configured to emulate the Windows NT 4 domain controller behavior. The Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 domain members will not distinguish between upgraded domain controllers and Windows NT 4 domain controllers.

    To accommodate special needs of administrators, domain members running either Windows 2000 SP2 or Windows Server 2003 can be configured to inform domain controllers running Windows 2000 SP2 or Windows Server 2003 not to emulate Windows NT 4 domain controller behavior when responding to such domain members.

  • Global catalog replication tuning.

    In Windows Server 2003 domains with global catalog replication, tuning in the global catalog synchronization state is preserved rather than reset, minimizing the work generated as a result of a Partial Attribute Set (PAS) extension by transmitting only attributes that were added. The overall benefit is a reduction in replication traffic and more efficient PAS updates.

  • Group membership replication improvements.

    When a forest is advanced to Windows Server 2003 Forest Native Mode, group membership is changed to store and replicate values for individual members instead of the entire membership as a single unit. This results in lower network bandwidth and processor usage during replication and virtually eliminates the possibility of lost updates during simultaneous updates.

  • LDAP support for Time to Live (TTL) values for dynamic entries.

    Active Directory can store dynamic entries. These entries specify a TTL value. The user can modify the TTL value, causing the entry to remain longer than its current remaining life. The LDAP C-language API was extended to support this new capability. This provides application developers with the ability to store information in the directory that does not need to persist for long periods of time and will automatically be deleted by Active Directory once the TTL expires .

  • Support for 64-bit deployment.

    Group Policy settings are now provided to help manage 64-bit software deployment. Options in the Application Deployment Editor (ADE) aid in determining whether 32-bit applications should be deployed to 64-bit clients. Group Policy can be used to ensure that only the appropriate applications are deployed to 64-bit clients.


   
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Introducing Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Introducing Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003
ISBN: 0735615705
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 153

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