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File and Print Servers

The very purpose of a network is the delivery of service offerings to a community of users. One of the most critical tasks you will undertake when designing the virtual service offerings (VSO) parallel network will be the implementation of the infrastructure that will support these offerings. Implementing this infrastructure will involve two major steps: creating the servers that will host each service offering type and creating the organizational unit (OU) infrastructure that will support service administration within the directory.

This tutorial as we discuss file replication technologies-the engine that allows the duplication of the files that make up a virtual machine.

This leaves five key roles to cover when designing your service infrastructure:

• File and print servers: Servers that provide storage and structured document services to the network.
• Application servers: Servers that provide application services based on either commercial applications, such as SQL Server, Commerce Server, and so on, or on custom corporate applications. This also includes applications based on the .NET Framework.
• Terminal servers: Servers that provide a central application execution environment; the entire execution environment resides on the server itself.
• Dedicated Web servers: Servers that provide Web services.
• Collaboration servers: Servers that provide the infrastructure for collaboration within the enterprise. Their services include, among others, SharePoint Team Services, streaming media services, electronic mail services, and real-time communications.

In addition, it will be important to complete the coverage of the network infrastructure servers, because only a few of their functions have been covered thus far.

The structure for the coverage of each of these server roles includes:

• Functional requirements: Discussions on how the service must be designed for the enterprise network and the rationale for the service.
• Features: Features supporting the role or service offering within Windows Server 2008 (WS08), including new features.
• Implementation instructions: How to proceed with the preparation of the server role within the parallel network environment.

Each server role will be based on the server construction model, the PASS model, and the basic server construction process, the design of the server kernel. In fact, here you only add functional roles to the core server design.

In addition, each time a role will affect the underlying resource pool, it will be described in detail. For example, the file service role affects resource pools because of the features that can be used to provide business continuity for the virtualized service offerings. Similarly, when business continuity is discussed, the features that offer redundancy for the host servers will be covered in detail. All, of course, with a focus on the Server Core installation that runs the virtualization engine that supports virtual service offerings.

All of the roles mentioned here are normally assigned to member servers. Domain controllers are reserved for one of two roles: identity management servers and multipurpose servers-servers that combine more than one role because of the size of the user base they support. Multipurpose servers are often found in smaller regional offices. These servers must be constructed with care because of the security risk involved in offering multiple user services on a domain controller.

CAUTION: With the advent of virtual service offerings, you may decide to forego the use of multipurpose servers because of the security risk and complexity of their configuration. Since you can now virtualize each server that offers a given service to users, it may be best to use a virtual machine for each service you need to offer to regions. While this will add to the total number of servers you need to manage, each server will be simpler to manage since its configuration will be more focused. In the end, you'll need to balance simplicity of administration with overall number of servers and the licenses each server will cost you. Of course, with the new license model for virtual servers, it becomes much easier to use a single license for multiple virtual machines.

It will also be important to cover specific business continuity considerations for all server types, such as the network load balancing and failover clustering services. Both offer powerful redundancy features that minimize risk within the enterprise.

The basis for enterprise services has been covered, it will be time to design the Virtual Service Offerings OU structure within the directory. As for the People and PCs OU structures, this design will include both Group Policy Object (GPO) and delegation principles, but it will also uniquely involve the design of a virtual service offerings administration plan. As with previous versions of Windows, WS08 offers the capability to focus specific administrative rights, based on the task the administrator is responsible for. This means you will no longer need to grant domain administration rights to one and all just to let them perform their work, as you did in Windows NT. This VSOs administration plan will be a key element of your security infrastructure for the network you are building.

The VSOs structure will be built up as each service is added to the network. It is at this point that OU contents will be identified. Once each service offering has been covered, the administrative, delegation, and Group Policy requirements for each will be covered in detail.