Thanks John.  I saw that one as well, but it doesn't tell me enough
information about how much of an impact I can expect on the registry.  I
understand the paging file and the RSL, but I can't get a solid amount of
information about a) what to expect to be put in the registry *exactly* and
b) what exactly each registry entry can possibly take in terms of size.  

A thousand scopes?  Nice to hear, but that doesn't solve the problem for me.


For more background, I currently have similar running across four servers in
two network sites. No problem.  What I want to do is isolate two different
business types.  As you can imagine from the domain name, we're a financial
institution and we have retail branches across all lines of business.  We
also have back-office needs.  To make this more reliable, I need to take
into account the 8th layer and design accordingly.  My current track is to
simplify by separation and put the branch scopes on two servers and the
rest/exceptions on the other two.  To do that, I need to know the limits.
The additional benefit of knowing the quantifiable benefits is the ability
to predict capacity and lifespan of the solution.  That obviously plays into
lifecycle management planning of the solution. Due to the business nature of
finacial organizations, I have to plan for twice the capacity of current.
In practice, that means that I have to at least know the capacity abilities
of the current solution or the future solution enough to know that if an
acquisition occurs, I can either deploy more capacity else know that I can
use the current to that scale. 

The docs I've found so far, including the one you posted and the information
from Jorge were too high-level for what I'm after. I appreciate them but I
still need additional information to make this design right. 

Thoughts?

Thanks John,

Al

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Reijnders
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 11:29 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DHCP

Hi Al,

Looking in the Windows Server System Reference Architecture you can read: 

"... scaling the DHCP service involves network infrastructure issues for
most enterprises." -> However, according to your question this does not
apply for your network. Lucky you ;-)!

The following quote relates to your question:

"You can create an unlimited number of scopes on a DHCP server. However, a
DHCP server should ideally host no more than 1,000 scopes. When adding a
large number of scopes to the server, be aware that each scope creates a
corresponding need for additional disk space for the DHCP server registry
and the server paging file.

Before deployment, you should test your DHCP servers on the network to
determine any limitations and abilities of your hardware and to see whether
the network architecture, traffic, and other factors affect DHCP server
performance."

However, it still doesn't answer it. However, there is a specific article
about planning DHCP networks that might (not sure) deal with this topic.
This is the URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/standard/p
roddocs/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/stan
dard/proddocs/en-us/sag_DHCP_imp_PlanningNetworks.asp

Good luck!
John Reijnders

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mulnick, Al
Sent: maandag 3 januari 2005 17:08
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DHCP

Thanks Jorge, I did see and read that.  Unless I'm missing something in
there, it doesn't answer the questions however.  It does give some ideas,
but it's not detailed enough to help.

Al 

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jorge de Almeida
Pinto
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 11:02 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DHCP

Hi Al,
 
Give a try with the W2K3 Deployment Kit - Designing Network Services ->
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/all/deploy
guide/en-us/DNSBC_DHC_OVERVIEW.asp
 
Regards,
Jorge

________________________________

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mulnick, Al
Sent: maandag 3 januari 2005 15:15
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ActiveDir] DHCP



I'm looking for more precise information for DHCP sizing and I'd appreciate
any real-world information as well. 

What I'm trying to find out is how much registry space one DHCP server
requires at max capacity.  I realize that a DHCP server puts information in
the registry for each scope. What exactly it's supposed to put in there
under any given circumstance is a little less clear.  How much space it
requires or a way to estimate how much possible space could be used is
totally unclear.  I did find some information about RSL (max registry size
basically) and about Microsoft's case study with their DHCP usage.  That's
not enough information though.

I'd like to find out what my limits are.  For example, I'm interested in
what would happen if I put the entire 10.x.x.x netblock on a single DHCP
server.   Before you tell me that shouldn't happen because of fault
tolerance or network topology, I can tell you that network bandwidth is not
a problem I suffer from.  Fault tolerance for DHCP is often done via
settings and the 80/20 split concept, although at some point it's possible
that one server would have to achieve 100% during a failure scenario.  Also,
what is 80% capacity for one server?  

Enough of the rambling...    If anyone could point me in a better direction,
I'd appreciate it.  At worst, if you have any tools that would help to
measure registry impact, that would be appreciated.  I haven't investigated
that route yet, but suspect that sysinternals likely has something I can
use.  I'm interested in the theoretical and the folks that wrote the code.  

Questions I need to answer: 
What is the max possible impact of the DHCP application on the registry? 
What is the practical limit of a DHCP server in quantifiable terms? 

Additional question from me: 
Does anyone have any documents they can point me to that give the possible
registry impact when scaling a DHCP server?  


TIA 

(Happy New Year BTW to those following the Gregorian Calendarical system  ;)






Al Mulnick 

"I strive to be unique.  Just like everybody else" 




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