Thursday 18 July 2013

Deploying a GlobalNames Zone (GNZ)

A common requirement in computer networks is the ability to resolve simple, single-label names. The use of single-label names makes it possible for a computer to access hosts such as file and Web servers by using short, easy-to-remember names instead of the fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) that form the default naming convention for Domain Name System (DNS). To make the use of single-label names possible, many networks deploy Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) technology and servers in their environment. As a name resolution protocol, WINS is an alternative to DNS. It is an older service that uses NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT). WINS and NetBT do not support Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocols; therefore, they are being phased out in many networks.

To help network administrators migrate to DNS for all name resolution, the DNS Server role in Windows Server 2008 supports a specially named zone, called GlobalNames. By deploying a zone with this name, you can have the static, global records with single-label names, without relying on WINS. These single-label names typically refer to records for important, well-known and widely-used servers—servers that are already assigned static IP addresses and that are currently managed by IT-administrators using WINS.

The GlobalNames zone is not designed to be a complete replacement for WINS. You should not use the GlobalNames zone to support the name resolution of records that are dynamically registered in WINS, records which typically are not managed by IT administrators. Support for these dynamically registered records is not scalable, especially for larger customers with multiple domains or multiple forests.

This is an extract from a TechNet article see the link below for the full article.

TechNet: Deploying a GlobalNames Zone

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