Argument over populating Network Neighbourhood

[SelbyGlenn]

Hi there,

I'm having a bit of an ongoing argument with my boss at the moment about whether remote sites should be able to see the entire domain or only machines on their own subnet.

He says that populating the network neighbourhood with the entire domain is an overhead on traffic across the VPN's.

I would rather see a full domain list on every site.

We are now running a Windows 2000 domain (mixed mode) and there are DC's on every site and every DC is also a DNS server and Global Catalog Server.

Can someone please clarify exactly how the Network Neighbourhood is populated? Does the Global Catalog server have anything to do with this and if so does it reduce the traffic compared with the old NT Domain?

Thanks in advance,

Glenn
BEng A+ MCSE CCA

 

[Blutch]

2000 gives you always more traffic.

And the browser service gives you indeed lots of overhead. Traffic is increased and I must say your boss is correct.

Blutch

 

[WillShakespeare]

Come on now... is Blutch your boss in disguise???

Will

 

[SelbyGlenn]

LOL

Hmmmmm. Could be! Glenn
BEng A+ MCSE CCA

 

[Blutch]

I wished.

No seriously, the browser service gives you lots of traffic, if you like it or not. And 2000 gives you more traffic than NT. That doesn't mean it isn't a better product, it is.

Blutch

 

[dankelt]

Here is a nice little article about the Browser Service, and Active Directory. It doesn't get into details on how active directory works, but it's a good starting point.

http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=3454

 

[Blutch]

It is a good article, and is correct. But remember that Glenn mentioned he is still in mixed mode.

Blutch

 

[SelbyGlenn]

Thanks for the help guys. That article is very useful too. It looks like the browser overheads will be hear for some time - at least until I go native and remove WINS too.

Win some, loose some...

Cheers,
Glenn
BEng A+ MCSE CCA

 

[dankelt]

Yup, I realize that. I wasn't trying to prove you wrong. ;-)

My question, and I belive it is what Glenn is also wanting to know (but I can't say for sure because I don't know his exact network setup) is, would it work to replicate AD over the VPN links (I'm assuming there are DCs at each site) instead of allowing Browser Broadcasts. And if so, would the Bandwidth created by the AD replication be more or less than the bandwidth created by the Browser Service. And would this even work?

Maybe I am making no sence here, and don't have a good enough understanding of AD. This is an interesting topic, and I've learned something!