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For a
planned Active Directory, how can I
predict how much memory will my new
Domain Controllers require, and how many
of them I need?
The Active
Directory service Sizer tool lets you
estimate the hardware required for
deploying Active Directory in an
organization based on the organization's
profile, domain information and site
topology.
Based on
user inputs and internal formulas, this
tool estimates the number of:
-
Domain
controllers per domain per site.
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Global
Catalog servers per domain per site.
-
CPUs
per machine and type of CPU.
-
Disks
needed for Active Directory data
storage.
In
addition, the Sizer tool provides
approximate estimates for the following:
-
Amount
of memory required.
-
Network bandwidth utilization.
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Domain
database size.
-
Global
Catalog database size.
-
Inter-site replication bandwidth
required.
The list
of information to be gathered per domain
to accurately size the domain
controllers includes:
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Total
number of users in the domain. Total
number of concurrent users.
-
Total
number of attributes per user.
Active Directory automatically
assigns each user a number of
attributes. Additional attributes
based on the business uses of the
Active Directory service should be
included in the estimate.
-
Average number of groups a user
belongs to. The number of groups a
user belongs to can affect the time
to process a logon request. The
logon request evaluates user access
by looking at the access granted to
each group the user belongs to.
-
Average logon rate per second during
peak hours (interactive, batch and
network). Interactive logon type is
intended for users who will be
interactively using the machine,
such as a user being logged on using
Terminal Services, a remote shell,
or similar process. Batch logon type
is intended for batch servers, where
processes may be executing on behalf
of a user without their direct
intervention; or for higher
performance servers that process
many clear-text authentication
attempts at a time, such as mail or
Web servers. Network logon type is
intended for high performance
servers to authenticate clear text
passwords. This type is used to
access other network resources, such
as remote servers or printers.
-
Password expiration rate (in days).
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Number
of Windows 2000-based computers in
the domain.
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Number
of other computers in this domain.
-
Number
of other objects published in this
domain. Other objects are any
objects other than users and
computers that will be included in
Active Directory. For example, user
groups, organizational units,
contacts, printers or shares would
be consider "other objects".
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Desired average CPU utilization
limit for each Domain Controller.
-
Preferred CPU type for domain
controllers,
-
Number
of processors required of the CPU
type specified above.
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Administration. This section allows
an administrator to specify the
administrator-generated workload for
object addition, deletion, or
modification to Active Directory.
The planned average number of
objects added, deleted, or modified
on a daily, weekly, or yearly
interval should be entered.
-
Microsoft Exchange 2000. Microsoft
Exchange 2000 Server uses Active
Directory for directory services,
transport and name resolution. If
planning to install Exchange 2000,
enter the average number of messages
per user/per day and the average
number of recipients for each
message.
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DNS
related issues. This section allows
an administrator to specify whether
Active Directory-integrated DNS
zones will be used, the number of
dial-in connections (per day) that
will be made by computers joined to
the domain, the duration of DHCP
leases, and the behavior of the DNS
Server aging and scavenging feature.
-
Other
Active Directory-enabled application
issues. This section covers other
Active Directory-enabled
applications that are not
specifically known by the tool.
Changes introduced by Active
Directory Connector (ADC) or other
directory synchronization programs
(such as Microsoft Directory
Synchronization Services) should be
estimated in operations per second
for searching, adding, deleting, and
modifying objects.
Note:
These estimates were planned on old
Dell POWEREDGE 6300 servers. With
today's hardware available you'd expect
Microsoft to produce more up-to-date
templates for this useful tool - but
they haven't. |
