How the components work together

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

How the components work together

When you provide Phone Book Administrator (PBA) with new phone book information, PBA posts the updates to the Phone Book Service (PBS). The next time a user connects to your network using a Connection Manager profile, Connection Manager queries PBS for updated phone book information. PBS compares the phone book name and version sent from Connection Manager with the updated phone book files and then downloads any new phone book information to the client computer.

PBA relies on the FTP service to post the phone book files to PBS. PBS relies on the WWW service, provided through Internet Information Services (IIS), to receive phone book queries from Connection Manager and download the appropriate updates.

PBA and PBS need a TCP/IP connection in order to transfer phone book information through FTP.

The following diagram and accompanying table illustrate the publishing process.

Phone book publishing process

Step 1: Establish database Step 2: Post to server Step 3: Update client computer

You can use PBA to create new phone book files. Or, if you already have a database in another application, you can import that data file using the PBA command-line interface.

Imported files or data you entered using PBA are stored in the phone book database. When you publish phone books, PBA publishes changes to PBS through FTP.

Using Connection Manager, clients query the phone book server. If the versions of their phone books are outdated, PBS automatically sends the appropriate update.

Notes

  • You can use the current version of PBS with earlier versions of PBA.

  • You must administer each phone book using only one installation of PBA. Administering the same phone book using multiple installations of PBA causes version conflicts that will prevent your users from obtaining the most recent version of the phone book.

  • You can publish multiple phone books to the same server running a member of the Windows Server 2003 family, even if you administer each phone book with a different installation of PBA.

  • You must not publish the same phone book to more than one phone book server. Publishing the same phone book to more than one phone book server causes version conflicts that will prevent your users from obtaining the most recent version of the phone book. However, you can replicate the phone book to multiple servers from the server to which you published the phone book. You can use the Distributed File System (DFS) console to automate replication, or you can replicate the phone book yourself by copying the folder to the other servers. For more information about DFS, see Distributed File System (DFS).

  • The FTP service must reside on your server. If you do not want FTP to run while PBA is not in use, stop the service through the Internet Services Manager and then enable it when you are ready to post. Do not uninstall FTP, because doing so will automatically uninstall PBS.