Daily Startup of WINS Clients

An active WINS client name registration in a WINS server database is replicated to all pull partners configured on that WINS server. (See "Configuring Replication Partners" for an explanation of pull partners and push partners.) After some time, the active name registration is replicated to all WINS servers on the network.

When a WINS client is turned off at the end of the day, it releases the name. When the computer is started the next morning, the WINS client registers the name again with the WINS server and receives a new version ID. This new, active name registration entry is replicated to the WINS server's pull partners as on the previous day.

Therefore, the number of name registration entries that are replicated each day is roughly equivalent to the number of computers started each day times the number of NetBIOS names registered at each computer.

On large networks (50,000 or more computers), the biggest traffic load may be the name registration requests generated when WINS clients start on the network. Fortunately, the difference in time zones in large enterprise networks provides some distribution of this WINS client startup load.