Specifying the administration server for the Domino® Directory

Choosing the administration server for the Domino® Directory depends on your network setup, the available equipment, and the anticipated changes that will be made to the Domino® Directory via the Administration Process.

Large numbers of name-management operations -- rename and delete requests for example -- result in many changes to the Domino® Directory with the subsequent view rebuilding and thereby affecting performance. Making a heavily accessed server the administration server of the Domino® Directory results in slow server performance from a user's perspective. Giving only one, or a few servers the responsibility of being the administration server of many databases may result in that server continually processing delete and name change requests. Choosing the administration server also involves planning how to assign administration servers for other databases in the domain because all name management operations require extensive searching of databases to determine which server is the administration server for the ACLs, Reader and Author fields, Name fields and unread lists. When choosing the administration server for databases in a domain, your choices include:

• Using a hub server as the administration server for the Domino® Directory and for other databases.
• Using a dedicated registration server as the administration server for the Domino® Directory and using one or more separate hub servers as administration servers for other databases.
• Using a multifunction server as the administration server for the Domino® Directory and distributing administration responsibilities for the other databases to other servers.
• Setting multiple administration servers, called extended administration servers, for the Domino® Directory to provide for less centralized, more regional, directory management.
• Using a server that contains mail and other databases as the administration server for the Domino® Directory is possible, but is not recommended for performance reasons.
• Always run the most recent version of Domino® on the administration server of the Domino® Directory and the extended administration servers, so that you can use all of the newest Administration Process features.
• If you use an LDAP client to administer the Domino® Directory, the Administration Process is not aware of these changes and does not extend the changes to other databases. For example, if you delete a Person document, you must manually remove references to that person's name in other places that it occurs because the Administration Process does not do this for you.

Option 1 -- If the domain has only a few servers, consider using one administration server for both the Domino® Directory and for other databases. The majority of the administration server resources are used for updating the Domino® Directory and replicating to keep the Domino® Directory consistent across the domain. The responsibility of the administration server of other databases is to maintain ACLs, Reader, Authors, and Names fields; and unread lists during name management operations. While this option centralizes administration, it may result in slower server performance as the domain grows and the use of the Administration Process to update the Domino® Directory and maintain databases increases.

Option 2 -- A second option involves using a dedicated registration server as the administration server for the Domino® Directory. You limit this server's responsibility to the processing of Domino® Directory changes. You can then use other servers, such as database hubs, for processing ACL changes to other databases. To do so, specify the database hub as the administration server for those databases. You can divide the responsibility for database ACL changes among several administration servers; but, you must make sure that when there are multiple replicas of a database in the domain, you assign an administration server for only one replica.

Option 3 -- A third option involves using multiple servers to maintain the Domino® Directory. If your domain is geographically dispersed, having a single administration server for the Domino® Directory means all administration requests for Domino® Directory changes have to replicate to this one server and the resultant changes have to replicate back. If your company is organized hierarchically, that is, it is composed of multiple organizations and organizational units, extended administration servers can be assigned to maintain the directory documents associated with people, groups, and servers whose names have that organization or organizational unit component.