NDS ABCs: The Core Team for Successful NDS Design
Articles and Tips: tip
01 Dec 1999
The best Novell Directory Services (NDS) trees are those that are planned out in advance. Though NDS is fairly simple, planning your design up-front can eliminate possible problems later on. A good NDS design will have the following characteristics:
Users will have an efficient, predictable structure, supporting easy location of and access to network services.
Network administrators can easily name, locate, and manage network resources.
Network administrators can easily secure access to network resources from unwanted users.
The network will perform rapidly at all times for all users.
The network will be easily scalable as users and services grow and change.
Who Does What?
Ideally, you will need a core team comprised of persons of varying but related NDS skills. To create an effective design, you need to identify the skills, tasks, and personnel needed. Skills, tasks, and personnel can be organized into project roles.
A typical NDS design team is composed of a Project Manager, an NDS Expert, a Server Administrator, and a Connectivity Specialist. These roles form the core of your NDS design and implementation team. Here's a brief description of each of these primary roles.
Project Manager. This can be a person at any level of the IS department, such as manager of front-line administrators or the server department, or a senior manager in the IS department. The Project Manager helps move the team through the process of design and implementation by maintaining the project's focus, schedule, and contact with others in the organization.
NDS Expert. An NDS Expert will have worked extensively with NDS or completed specialized training relative to NetWare 5 and NDS. This role could also be filled by an outside NDS consultant. The priorities for this person would be to lead the project team, create the NDS tree design, design NDS security, formulate a strategy for partitioning and replication, choose project team members, and communicate with management and departments to determine needs.
Server Administrator. A Server Administrator is someone who works daily with NetWare server administration. This person's priorities are to maintain network performance levels, determine and plan the pilot implementation, implement the upgrade and rollout to other departments, and ensure implementation of a logical synchronization strategy.
Connectivity Specialist. The Connectivity Specialist works with the physical network: the internetwork backbone, telecommunications, WAN design, and router placement. An NDS tree can make substantial use of WAN connections. The Connectivity Specialist determines the effect of routing, protocols, telecommunications, and WAN structure on the NDS tree design.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
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The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.