Designing the Lab

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Before you design the lab, you need to have a high-level deployment plan. You might need to know, for example, the proposed namespace design. You also need to know the domain architecture and how you will configure servers for services such as Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and Windows Internet Name Service (WINS). To ensure that the lab design reflects testing requirements, the project subteams should provide information about the hardware, software, and configurations they need.

If you decide to build a permanent lab that you can use for change management after Windows 2000 is deployed, the design should be flexible enough, both in space and layout, to accommodate the future.

The more planning that goes into designing the lab, the more the tests can accurately reflect the actual implementation.