###BeginCaseStudy###
Case Study: 9
Litware, Inc
Scenario
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Litware, Inc. is a manufacturing company that has a main office and two branch office. The
main office is located in Montreal. The branch offices are located in Seattle and New York.
The main office has 4,000 users. The branch offices each have 500 users.
PLANNED CHANGES
Litware plans to open a new sales office. The sales office will have a direct connection to the
Internet. The sales office will have a single server. The sales office requires a connection to
the Montreal office. The connection to the Montreal office must use either TCP port 80 or
TCP port 443. The network currently contains a Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN).
A new iSCSI SAN will be implemented during the next month. The current SAN and the new
SAN are from different manufacturers. Both SANs use a virtual disk service (VDS) interface.
EXISTING ENVIRONMENT
All servers run Windows Server 2008 R2. All client computers run Windows 7 Enterprise.
The main office has a single DHCP server. The IP addresses for all of the client computers
must be assigned from the DHCP server. All software is installed from a central software
distribution point in the main office. Software deployments for the branch offices frequently
fail due to bandwidth limitations.
Existing Active Directory/Directory Services
The network contains a single Active Directory domain named litwareinc.com. Each office
has two domain controllers.
Current Administration Model
Currently, all help desk users have full administrator rights to the servers. The help desk users
use Remote Desktop to log on to the servers and perform tasks such as managing Active
Directory user accounts and creating DHCP reservations.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Windows Firewall must be managed by using the minimum amount of administrative effort.
Windows Firewall configurations must be duplicated easily between servers that have the
same server role. Litware must centralize the monitoring of critical system events. The
monitoring solution must use the existing infrastructure. Litware plans to prevent help desk
users from interactively logging on to servers. Help desk users must not have full
administrator rights to the servers.
The software deployment process must be updated to meet the following requirements:
• Application source files must be centrally managed.
• Software deployments to the offices in Seattle and New York must remain unaffected
if a WAN link fails.
The SANs must be administered by using a single tool.
###EndCaseStudy###
You need to recommend changes to the software deployment process that meet the company’s
technical requirements. What should you include in the recommendation?
A.
BranchCache in Distributed Cache mode
B.
BranchCache in Hosted Cache mode
C.
domain-based Distributed File System (DFS)
D.
standalone Distributed File System (DFS)
Explanation:
Software is installed and managed from a central location, so regardless of where a user is in the
network the share for the installation files should appear to be the same, this is done using DFS
Namespaces. There is one AD Domain and each Office also has 2 DCs so you can add the updated
files in the HQ and then use DFS replication to replicate the new files to the branch namespace
servers Distributed File System (DFS) Namespaces and DFS Replication offer simplified, highlyavailable access to files, load sharing, and WAN-friendly replication. In the Windows Server® 2003 R2
operating system, Microsoft revised and renamed DFS Namespaces (formerly called DFS), replaced
the Distributed File System snap-in with the DFS Management snap-in, and introduced the new DFS
Replication feature. In the Windows Server® 2008 operating system, Microsoft added the Windows
Server 2008 mode of domain-based namespaces and added a number of usability and performance
improvements.
What does Distributed File System (DFS) do?
The Distributed File System (DFS) technologies offer wide area network (WAN)-friendly replication as
well as simplified, highly-available access to geographically dispersed files. The two technologies in
DFS are the following:
DFS Namespaces. Enables you to group shared folders that are located on different servers into one
or more logically structured namespaces. Each namespace appears to users as a single shared folder
with a series of subfolders. This structure increases availability and automatically connects users to
shared folders in the same Active Directory Domain Services site, when available, instead of routing
them over WAN connections.
DFS Replication. DFS Replication is an efficient, multiple-master replication engine that you can use
to keep folders synchronized between servers across limited bandwidth network connections. It
replaces the File Replication Service (FRS) as the replication engine for DFS Namespaces, as well as
for replicating the AD DS SYSVOL folder in domains that use the Windows Server 2008 domain
functional level.
in respect to answers A or B these may possibly work but this test http
://www.sustainableit.co.za/wp-content/
uploads/downloads/2010/09/Is_BranchCache_right_for_software_distribution.pdf would suggest its
not the most efficient solution.