Consider the following eDirectory guidelines to maintain optimal performance when providing DNS and DHCP services on your OES network:
Where to locate the DNS and DHCP Group and Locator objects. See Understanding DNS and DHCP Services for more information about these objects.
Where to locate the DNS and DHCP servers
What replication strategy to employ
How to provide fault tolerance
We recommend the following:
Place the DNS and DHCP objects in a separate partition that is accessible from and replicated to all points of the network where OES DNS and DHCP servers are located. For details on the objects in DNS and DHCP, see DNS eDirectory Objects and Attributes and DHCP eDirectory Objects.
This is required because all OES DNS and DHCP servers and the Java Management Console require access to these objects.
Plan to create an Organizational Unit (OU) container object near the top of your eDirectory tree. The location of this container object should be easily and widely accessible. Locate the DNS and DHCP Group and Locator objects under the container object.
Plan to create an Administrator Group object under the container object near the top of the eDirectory tree. An administrator group should have Read and Write permissions to both DNS and DHCP Locator object attributes except the global data and options fields. Members of this group can use Java Console to modify DHCP objects and manage DNS objects.
IMPORTANT:A network administrator can access only his or her administrative domain, which might not include the DNS and DHCP Locator objects. By creating an administrative group, you enable administrators who are group members to use the Java Management Console.
Plan to locate your DNS and DHCP servers at locations where they are geographically close to the hosts that require their services. Plan to also have one DHCP server in each partition of your network to minimize any WAN communications problems caused by normal load, configuration changes, or replication.
Replicate the partition containing the DNS and DHCP Group and Locator objects to all parts of the network that use DNS and DHCP services. This ensures access in the event of system unavailability or hardware problems.
When planning your DNS replication strategy, consider that replication is employed for load balancing when you provide multiple name servers within the DNS zone.
Well-planned replication is the best way to provide fault tolerance for DNS and DHCP services.