Domain network - features and implementation

Domain network - schematic diagram

Company leaders, being a progressive audience, are actively interested in current technologies and try, as necessary, to implement them in their companies. Technology is taking the burden off people, freeing up employees' time for more business-critical tasks. However, along with networks and technologies come not the most unambiguous questions that are not asked by all leaders for one reason or another. For example, what type of logical computer network would you prefer for your office, should you peer-to-peer network or should the technical department build a domain network, as well as what hardware and software to choose for your company.

Let's start with the simplest implementation of a local peer-to-peer network. Several computers are connected by cable or wirelessly to each other, each computer is independent from each other and stores access data to all other computers on the network. Such a network is as simple as it is insecure, because all computers in this network act as a directory with data that every user has access to from every machine.

In parallel with peer-to-peer networks, domain networks are being actively implemented and successfully prove their worth, especially in a business environment. A domain network is a type of computer network in which there is at least one main computer, called domain controller and to it, through a local or remote connection, all other computers on the network are connected to work . It is noteworthy that the slave computer uses its own computing power when working remotely, instead of server resources, in comparison with a peer-to-peer network, where the main load falls on the server hardware. Thus, a domain controller carries a number of significant differences from other computers in a domain network. The main function of a domain controller is the  global catalog, which stores all data about users, computers and devices that have access to this network. The domain controller acts as an aggregator of all computer and network settings of devices connected to the network. Of course, these are not all the functions that a domain network can provide, further in the text we will describe its main features and advantages over a peer-to-peer network, and also you will decide whether you need a domain implementation of the network or your organization will need a peer-to-peer local network.

Key benefits of a domain network:

  • Increased security for storing and using data;
  • Manage printing on printers by all users on the network, with the ability to control the amount of printing for each network member;
  • The ability to use a private corporate chat, as well as create your own mail server with mailboxes like: department_name@your_company.your_domain;
  • Shared file space organization (DFS system) with flexible access settings;
  • The ability to quickly replace a working computer that has failed with any other (the simplest steps to enter a computer into a domain and log in as an individual user);
  • Powerful batching of user accounts, settings, and apps;
  • High network fault tolerance.

Summing up, it is worth saying that such functionality is relevant only when there are at least 3-5 computers, and there are requirements for the security of data located on the working network.

Firewall-Service specialists are competent in networking issues, able to design, consult (acquisition of missing network equipment, system blocks and consumables) and completely organize a domain network in your company (installation, configuration and preparing the server and computers for networking.)  At the moment, when organizing a domain, companies prefer closed solutions from Microsoft Corporation. However, there are alternative ways to organize a domain, for example, in Linux systems, the Samba network file system is widespread, similar in functionality to that implemented in Windows 2000, capable of acting as a domain controller and an Active Directory service. The domain network implementation using the Samba network file system is a promising direction that will be developed by our specialists and in the future will be introduced into the existing structure of computer networks of organizations.

 

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