TechNetTop Questions - July 10, 2000
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Where did my PDC Go? My BDC Can't Find it!!
Self-proclaimed Newbie Needs to Defragment her Windows NT 4.0 Hard Drive
What's all this Talk About "Data Warehouses", anyway??
Where did my PDC Go? My BDC Can't Find it!!
Q: Hi there!
I am trying to extend the network to a remote site and installed a BDC to be place at the new location.
The installation was done at the main site and the BDC worked fine there. When I move the BDC to the remote location, I am unable to logon from any of the clients at the remote site. I get the error that the computer name cannot be found or the domain password is invalid. The client was also installed at the location with the PDC and that worked fine there.
I have realized that there is a NETLOGON error in the event viewer on the BDC that says that the domain could not be found. However, I am able to do the following:
ping the PDC from a client at the remote site,
ping another client at the main site from either the bdc or a client at the remote site.
use tracert to trace an ip address at the main site from the remote location and vice versa.
Can anyone please tell be why the BDC would not logon and update the SAM from the PDC even though I can ping and run tracert?
Thanks
Anthony
A: Evidently Anthony implemented a cross-post on the newsgroups and received some suggestions from another newsgroup poster. Anthony was diligent enough to follow his original post with the response and resolution he received. Now everybody that was wondering knows the answer!
Here's what Anthony had to say:
Another newsgroup contributor advised that I should setup WINS and my problems would be solved. I already had WINS on the PDC but was not telling the BDC and client at the remote location that the primary wins server was the PDC.
I did that and I was able to logon with no problems. I also installed WINS on the BDC and set it to update from the PDC. Everything is working fine now.
Thanks Anthony, your recommendation sounds like it works well for you. Yes, the BDC needs to know where the primary WINS server is located. You know, I seem to remember a Knowledge Base article that might be useful to obtain, print out, frame, and hang on your NT Administers' wall. It is titled "How to Install a BDC in a Routed TCP/IP Environment" article #140476.
Self-proclaimed Newbie Needs to Defragment her Windows NT 4.0 Hard Drive
Q: Hi,
I'm a newbie to Windows NT and am looking to defrag my hard drive. But I don't see a defrag utility. Where can I get one?
TIA
Betsy
A: Here's what IT Pro Joe has to say about this very common question. (Common, but still a good question – that's why I included it!):
There is no "extras" tab in properties of the drives on NT workstation or server. You must have third party tools installed as NT doesn't have a defragmentation option by default. Microsoft has only one suggestion without using third party tools and that is to back up the volume to a tape......reformat the drive and then restore again from the backup.....not a simple solution..
Suggestion: Get third party tools.
Regards,
Joe Funk
Next, Greg from Raxco Software provides the following suggestions:
Betsy,
There is no built-in defragger for Windows NT 4.0. To defrag, you'll have to go third party.
Current commercial defraggers available for Windows NT:
PerfectDisk 2000 - Schedulable, defragments pagefile and MFT and is the only commercial defragger capable of defragmenting the rest of the NTFS metadata ($LogFile, $Bitmap, etc...). PD2k runs on Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000, and from a central point you can schedule defrag activity throughout. No difference in functionality between the workstation and server version (workstation version can schedule through the network). PD2k is a "one pass" defragger - it is designed to do a complete job in one pass - instead of having to run over and over again like some others...
Diskeeper 5.03 - Schedulable, defragments pagefile and MFT but is unable to defragment the rest of the NTFS metadata. DK runs on Windows 9x, WinNT 4.0, and Windows 2000 and requires their Server version if you want to schedule defrag activity through the network.
O&O Defrag. Don't know much about this one. Schedulable, defragments pagefile and MFT but don't defragment the rest of the NTFS metadata. Just released their "Network Addition" which allows you to schedule through the network.
Speedisk. Schedulable, defragments pagefile and MFT but is unable to defragment the rest of the NTFS metadata. SD 5.0 runs on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 and requires their command center software if you want to schedule defrag activity through the network.
Ontrack's FixIt Tools. Don't know much about this one.
Hope this helps!
Greg
Excellent Greg. Thanks a lot! Another website that Windows NT users might want to add to their favorites list is Beverly Hills Software. Lots of cool utilities there – some freeware, too. And of course "A whole lot more!"
What's all this Talk About "Data Warehouses", anyway??
Q: Hello,
We are a psychiatric hospital, and we think we need certainly a database warehouse? But we are not sure ! Could someone explain us what is really a database warehouse, how does it works, and with which architecture?
Thank you for your help.
Jean-Pierre Clutier
A: JP,
Some high-level items that will point to whether or not you need a DW:
Do you have a number of reports that come from Operational (Transactional) systems that do not answer the analytical questions your organization has?
Do you need to analyze patients, providers, resources over time?
Is your current reporting environment a bottleneck (not very efficient)?
Do you have the need to report off of multiple systems as the same set of data (i.e. Patient Admissions/Claims/Drug)
Do you have a desire to identify a single patient, provider, resource across these systems?
If you answer yes to any of the above, then you at a minimum may want to consider an Operational Data Store - a volatile environment that captures data from transactional systems and allows for you to report against it. Otherwise, a data warehouse is a serious next step. Keep in mind that you will be doing more than just putting all of your operational data in one place. You will be re-modeling your data and looking for conformed dimensions and fact groups. I highly recommend that you pick up "The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit" by Ralph Kimball (and others).
Architecture depends a great deal on the volume of data, but count on at least one server for providing Staging/RDBMS Production Tables and OLAP Services. The software can be Windows NT or Windows 2000, SQL Server 7 or 2000 (Preferred), and Analysis Services. You will need to decide how you are going to present the data and that will take the form of a client tool like Excel 2000, Brio, Cognos, Business objects, etc....
Hope this helps.
Trey Johnson
Most excellent suggestions, Trey. Here are some that I dug up. The following (SQL Server) Database Warehouse resources are located on the Microsoft TechNet Web site. Of course, they address Microsoft SQL Server, but I think that each of these are valuable in that they describe warehousing strategy, implementation, or planning. Should give you some more things to think about!
MS SQL Server Manual "MS SQL Server Introduction", Chapter 12: "Data Warehousing and Online Analytical Processing."
Technical article "MS SQL Server 7.0 Data Warehousing Framework"