Planning for WINS Server Replication Across Wide Area Networks

The frequency of WINS database replication between WINS servers is a major planning issue. You should replicate the WINS database frequently enough that the down-time of any WINS server will not affect the reliability of the mapping information in the database of other WINS servers.

However, when planning WINS database replication frequency, you do not want the frequency to interfere with network throughput. This could occur if replication frequency is set to a short time interval.

Consider the network topology when planning for replication frequency. For example, if your network has multiple hubs connected by relatively slow wide area network (WAN) links, you can configure WINS database replication between WINS servers on the slow links to occur less frequently than replication on the local area network or on fast WAN links. This reduces traffic across the slow link and reduces contention between replication traffic and WINS client name queries.

For example, WINS servers at a central local area network site may be configured to replicate every 15 minutes, while database replication between WINS servers in different WAN hubs might be scheduled for every 30 minutes, and replication between WINS servers on different continents might be scheduled to replicate twice a day.

Planning for WINS Server Performance

When planning for a large-scale power outage where many computers will go on line simultaneously, the conservative recommendation is that you plan to include one WINS server and a backup server for every 10,000 computers on the network. A WINS server typically can service 1,500 name registrations per minute and 4,500 queries per minute.

Two factors enhance WINS server performance. WINS server performance can be increased by almost 25 percent on a computer with two processors. WINS server name replication response time can be improved measurably by using a dedicated disk.

After you establish WINS servers on an intranet, you can adjust the time between a WINS client name registration and name renewal. This is referred to as the Renewal Interval. Setting this interval to reduce the numbers of registrations can help tune server response time. (The Renewal Interval is specified in the WINS Server Configuration dialog box.)