Network Management

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Admittedly, the network administrator's lot is not always a happy one, particularly when faced with big changes that may have a negative impact on the departmental budget as well as on what some quaintly refer to as a "personal life." There's no question that just about every improvement has its down side. There's the cost (in time) of learning about these new technologies and then putting them in place. Then there's the cost (in cash) of the inevitable hardware and software upgrades needed for deploying Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Professional together in order to reap the technological benefits, not all of which will be immediately apparent (more about that later).

Nevertheless, what Microsoft taketh away with one hand, it often giveth back with the other. In the case of Windows 2000, your efforts will be rewarded with increased reliability, scalability, and security, plus the administrative tools to simplify the management of large and complicated networks.

PLANNING

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Even experienced Windows NT administrators (perhaps that should be especially experienced Windows NT administrators) should allow plenty of time to learn and practice the new concepts in Windows 2000. The organization of the interface will be unfamiliar, and a dedicated test network is essential for anyone coming to grips with Active Directory for the first time. The companion CD includes tools that can help with deployment.

The Microsoft Management Console

The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) hosts administrative tools displayed as consoles. These tools, composed of one or more applications, are built with modules called snap-ins. This design enables you to customize the tools so that you can delegate specific administrative tasks to users or groups. Saved as MMC files, these custom tools can be sent by e-mail, shared in a network folder, or posted on the Web. Using system policy settings, you can also assign MMC files to users, groups, or computers. A tool can be scaled up or down, integrated seamlessly into the operating system, repackaged, and customized. In fact, you can do everything with these tools short of adding pinstripes and custom upholstery. The details of creating and using Microsoft Management Consoles are covered in Chapter 10, although the use of MMCs is described in many other chapters.

Group Policy

Group Policy is a new management technology introduced in Windows 2000, used to specify options for desktop configurations for groups of computers and users. Group policies are saved as Group Policy objects that in turn are associated with Active Directory objects such as sites, domains, or organizational units (OUs). Policies can include security options, software installation and maintenance options, and options for scripts controlling startup and shutdown. Group policy is covered in Chapter 9.

Zero Administration

The aim of Windows 2000 is to provide "no-touch" clients and servers. In other words, once the clients and servers are set up, hardware, software, and user changes are handled automatically, using rules and profiles to determine what happens. Administrators can control the rules for the entire network from a single central location. Although ZAW is not completely realized in Windows 2000, a good deal of progress has been made in that direction. Table 1-1 summarizes some of the centralized network management tasks in Windows 2000.

Table 1-1. Centralized management tasks in Windows 2000 Server

Task	What Is Done	Technologies Used
Manage user documents	Mirrors user data to the network and caches network data locally on the client	Active Directory, Group Policy, Offline Files, Synchronization Manager, Disk Quota, and shell enhancements
Manage user settings	Mirrors user settings to the network and applies administrator-set defaults to the user's environment	Active Directory, Group Policy, Offline Files, Roaming User Profiles, and shell enhancements
Perform remote OS installation	Installs operating system from network servers	Active Directory, Group Policy, Remote Install Server, Remote Installation-capable workstation
Manage user profiles	Allows users to "roam" among computers within the corporate network	Roaming User Profiles, Group Policy
Install software	Provides just-in-time software installation (applications and operating system upgrades)	Active Directory, Group Policy, Windows Installer, Software Installation, Add/Remove Programs, Control Panel, and shell enhancements

Terminal Services

Terminal services allows Windows-based applications to run on desktops that can't normally run large Windows applications. All application processing and data storage take place on the server; the client machine needs only to be able to run a "thin client," which requires very small amounts of memory and disk storage space. (Under Windows 2000, a client can simultaneously be a thin client and a fat client.) This permits machines that would require hardware upgrades before they were able to run Windows 2000 to have access to applications that would otherwise be unavailable. With the use of a third-party add-on, even DOS, UNIX, and Macintosh machines can be clients.

With Terminal Services, users log on and see only their own session, which is completely independent of any other client session. The application operates on the server, and the entire process is transparent to the user. The setup and use of Terminal Services and Terminal Services clients is covered in Chapter 25.