Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The Anatomy of a WINS Network
Many small- and medium-sized businesses consist of a single-subnet network. In this environ-
ment, any server can be configured as a WINS server. The TCP/IP configuration of workstations
can include the IP address of a WINS server so that the workstations will register their NetBIOS
computer name and IP address when they boot. (See Recipe 1-13, “Managing WINS Server
Lookups.”)
The efficiency and redundancy of WINS networks can be enhanced by establishing multiple
WINS servers, each of which can be configured to replicate another in a topology and over a
time interval that is appropriate to the particular environment.
WINS replication is also important in environments that span multiple subnets, or even
multiple geographic sites. Rather than having to query a non-local WINS server, workstations
will query the closest one, which in turn has received its data through replication with other
WINS servers. Not only does this allow for more efficient communication (which is most
important to the network administrator), but it allows end users to browse resources that are
located on the distant subnets. This is helpful for businesses that contain a central office and
multiple remote sites, for example.
The overall network topology significantly affects WINS replication and network perfor-
mance in general. You want replication to occur frequently enough so that network services
will not be disrupted if a given WINS server is not available or does not contain the latest data,
but not so often that it will become a disruption due to resource usage.
For small, non-routed LANs, bandwidth is not usually a major problem. In these environ-
ments, maintaining a persistent connection between servers and having replication occur
relatively frequently will not produce a significant bottleneck in network communications.
However, larger organizations that may have sites separated by a large geographic
distance and that may be connected by slow or inefficient WAN links must pay much closer
attention to the network traffic generated by any service that is in operation over the network.
To minimize network disruption, you should not enable persistent, WINS replication connections,
and you should also consider increasing the interval at which replication occurs. For example,
if you have one office in the United States and another in China, you may not need rapid repli-
cation. It may be sufficient to configure replication to occur only once or twice per day. In this
chapter, we'll cover these tasks and many more related to managing a WINS environment.
Using a Graphical User Interface
All recipes that involve WINS management through a graphical user interface will refer to the
WINS MMC snap-in utility, accessed from the Administrative Tools folder within the Start menu.
In addition, you can access it directly at
%systemroot%\system32\winsmgmt.msc
.
Using a Command-Line Interface
In Windows Server 2003, the
netsh
command provides a command-line interface to manage
WINS. In this chapter, all recipes with command-line solutions will be based on
netsh
. This
syntax is documented on the Microsoft website and can be viewed by issuing the
netsh help
command.
