Special thanks to Hewlett-Packard for providing the lab equipment used in the tests that provided data for this chapter.

CHAPTER 4

Planning domain controller capacity helps you determine the appropriate number of domain controllers to place in each domain that is represented in a site. Capacity planning also assists you in estimating the hardware requirements for each domain controller so that you can minimize cost and maintain an effective service level for your users.

Overview of Planning Domain Controller Capacity

Collecting Site Topology Design Information

Determining the Number of Domain Controllers

Assessing Disk Space and Memory Requirements

Monitoring Domain Controller Performance

Additional Resources

• For more information about planning sites and site topology, see “Designing the Site Topology” in this book.
  
• For more information about designing the Active Directory® directory service forest and domain structure, see “Designing the Active Directory Logical Structure” in this book.
  
• For more information about Active Directory data storage and directory partitions, see the Active Directory Collection of the Windows Server 2003 Technical Reference (or see the Active Directory Collection at http://www.microsoft.com/reskit).