Chapter 4
Deployment involves a good deal more than merely installing an operating system, even a network operating system. The specifics of deployment—installing and configuring applications, file and print services, the Active Directory service, communications, security, and other functions—are covered in later chapters. This chapter deals with the work that must be done before the first CD-ROM is ever inserted into a drive—planning the hardware and software infrastructure on which your Microsoft Windows 2000 network will be based.
Successful deployment of Windows 2000 depends primarily on planning. Successful planning, in turn, depends on gathering and analyzing data as well as a certain amount of prophesying. The decisions made at the early stages of deployment will have your fingerprints all over them, for good or ill. Your vision of the future will prevail for years to come in the operation of the organization, and you'll undoubtedly be held accountable if the vision turns out to be a nightmare. Therefore, the more planning you devote to deployment, the better off everyone will be.
Three elements are essential for an effective information technology (IT) strategy:
This chapter discusses all three of these elements and examines how they are interrelated.