Introduction

Implementing NDS technology on your network can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. The flexibility of NDS allows you to install and run it on a single server or on many servers.

With NDS, you can create an enterprise-wide information system that spans multiple sites and countries and maintain multiple partitions and replicas within a multilevel hierarchy of containers and objects. Or, you can create a small workgroup-based network environment.

There are many reasons to implement NDS on any size network. The following are commonly cited reasons to implement NDS:

• Simple, flexible, and cost-efficient network administration, regardless of network size.

  NDS allows a single network supervisor to administer an entire network of resources from a single location or to share responsibility with local site supervisors using the same administration tool and database.

• Reliable fault tolerance.

  By carefully partitioning and replicating your Directory database, you can decrease WAN link traffic and provide for an accidental loss of Directory information.

• Flexible and usable implementation in mixed environments.

  A thoughtful implementation of bindery services can ease the migration process from bindery-based NetWare installations.

• Support for enterprise applications.

  NDS supports enterprise applications, such as demographics research tools, database applications, human resources/payroll applications, scheduling systems, statistical services applications, document management, and electronic mail.

• Increased network performance.

  NDS allows you to determine how and where network traffic is generated on the network. You can confine network traffic to a local server by implementing partitions and replicas.

• Advanced security features.

  NDS incorporates the advanced RSA (Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman, developers of this particular public key encryption system) security features that make encrypted, single-login authentication to network resources possible.

  NDS security is based on a top-down architecture. All rights to network resources are established through Access Control Lists (ACLs) that allow for sophisticated, but easily managed, administration.

  Security features can be set up using NetWare Administrator or NETADMIN.