Secure wins and DHCP services with Win 2000 cluster

The stability of the Windows network relies heavily on the normal operation of the WINS service (note i) and the DHCP service (note II), which will never be challenged by senior management. However, network management is often not in the maintenance of the key services of the long period of steady operation to devote enough attention and labor. The high availability of these services can be easily guaranteed through the Windows Cluster Service (availability), but it is regrettable that the network management is negligent in doing so due to insufficient attention.

After you install the hardware devices for the cluster server, you should use the WINS and DHCP services within this network. Both services in the Windows 2000 system are "Cluster-aware" (Cluster support detection), which means that the services can be run on a clustered server, which can switch tasks immediately to other servers in the cluster to prevent data loss and disruption of service during server downtime.

Microsoft's DNS services in Win2K currently do not support "Cluster-aware" (Cluster support detection), which is probably Microsoft's view that most Win2K users will essentially enable the Active Directory service, while the Active Directory in Win2K provides the integration area ( Integrated Zones,zone is a specific domain name record in the DNS service, such as Zdnet.com's zone record is described in Zdnet.zone, for fault-tolerant functionality of the service. Users can use the common Cluster service resources for cluster support of DNS services, depending on the user's choice.

Cluster-based WINS service

Most people underestimate the importance of the normal running of WINS services in this network, and I've often heard people say, "We don't use NetBIOS in our NT4 domain because we only use the DNS service." In Windows 2000 Active Directory domains, it is possible to reduce the dependency on the WINS service, or even to cancel the service. However, if you are in an NT 4 domain, or if any application relies on NetBIOS, then the WINS service is important. Because Windows computers are using WINS to locate network services.

For example, it is typically used to locate domain controllers, domain memberships, browser services (display services for shared resources in Windows networks), and users. A prefix (hexadecimal character) is used to represent a user-defined NetBIOS name. Therefore, if the WINS service is no longer reliable, your network services will no longer be reliable.

Many networks set up multiple WINS servers to provide system fault tolerance and reduce traffic and shorten response times. However, the WINS service is not optimized for distributed databases and, although it is carefully configured for WINS replication, it is still possible that data obsolescence or service failures may occur.

A single WINS server can be a good service for users under 10,000 (especially when you are using burst mode during peak hours), and you can set up a small number of backup WINS servers if you want to reduce downtime. For remote sites via narrowband (remote sites,site refers to a high-speed interconnected Windows network where Windows systems can integrate high-speed interconnected networks into a single site) WINS service, you must set up additional WINS servers. Note that wins that really can provide fault-tolerant services must be built in a clustered way.

When the WINS cluster is set up, the two servers are designed to run the WINS service (but only one is providing an accessible WINS service), and if a running server fails, the other one will take over the WINS service. Both servers will share disk storage, which means both use the same WINS database. Therefore, the above mechanism guarantees the integrity of the WINS data. Like other cluster services, a WINS cluster does not guarantee data storage (because the Cluster service first assumes that the data provided is intact), so users must secure an external shared storage device for the WINS service by adding hardware RAID and backup power.