General Planning Guidelines

· Is your cell a single LAN, an extended LAN, a WAN, or a combination of LANs and WANs?

· What is the current or proposed network topology (component placement)?

· How many servers will be required? Where will they be located?

· Will global servers be required? Where will they be located?

· Will you need to configure any couriers if you are using global servers?

· Will you use an external time-provider to obtain Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)?

The following topics will help you answer these questions.

Although there are many network configurations that affect DTS planning, several general rules apply regardless of your network configuration or the number of nodes in the network. These guidelines are summarized as follows:

· DTS must be installed with the other DCE components.

· Locate DTS servers on the same nodes as the servers for the other DCE components wherever possible.

· Each cell should have a minimum of three DTS servers; preferably four servers to provide redundancy.

· Each LAN should have at least one server.

· Locate the servers at the sites with the greatest number of nodes.

Although other factors must be considered when you plan your network, these factors depend on network topology and configuration. The following topics present some typical cell arrangements to aid you in implementing DTS on your own network.