Sean Daily's articles about recovering essential network services, "Recovering WINS" (March 2002, InstantDoc ID 23833) and "Recovering DHCP" (September 2001, InstantDoc ID 21841), were very informative, especially the suggestions about preparing for disaster. Do you recommend a time interval (e.g., once a month, once a quarter, once a year) for performing the maintenance for those crucial services? Also, have you written any articles about preparing for disaster recovery on Windows 2000 Server or Active Directory (AD)? I'm developing a maintenance schedule and plan to implement the recommendations from your articles.



---------------------------------------------------


How frequently you need to perform the maintenance services I discussed in the articles depends on the size of your organization. Large networks will have an inherently greater use of services such as WINS and DHCP than small networks will have. Thus, performing more frequent maintenance tasks on the databases these services use is important for large networks. In any case, a quarterly maintenance schedule is an absolute minimum*
a monthly schedule is a better idea for all but the smallest networks.
Search the archive on Windows & .NET Magazine's Web site (http://www.winnet
mag.com/magazine) to find other recovery-oriented articles. Look for the third part of my recovering essential services series, "Recovering AD," in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

--Sean Daily

Earl Hinkle 5/8/2002 3:00:34 PM