NT Project, System Issues

Initially, we will have one admin group with root permissions, one advisor group with read-only root permission and one user group. Other than that what groups we need to setup? Should we do the same grouping as we have on UNIX systems? Should we group home dir (folders) following UNIX convension? Any NT-specific need require additional or different organization? Need to discuss and decide.

Should we configure printing via TCP/IP or Appletalk? Should NT TCP/IP printing services bypass krusty and go directly to the printers? In general, we want to go with TCP/IP only if possible. This has been tested and there is no problem for NT server providing printing services via TCP/IP only. Bypassing krusty is also tested to be a possible solution. But since the later scheme assigns an IP address to every printer, there is a question in security. We may need some discussion and testing to determine the right answer. If the answer is yes, then more testing need to be done on performance.

The browser service on NT generates a lot of broadcasting traffic on the net, over-expose the systems and the service is not very accurate. Is the convenience pay to have? Do we want to encourage broad browsing between all NT systems? Is the need warrates the bandwidth and risk? We can setup the sharing such that to have the necessary resources visible to NT clients without using browser service and implement occasional sharing needs on a temperary basis. Both are easy to do. The merit of doing away with browser is that it can reduce net load and security risk. Need to discuss and decide.

We would like to use HPSS for backup/restore in the future. Before then we have the choices of local tape manual backup, backup to MAC, purchase tape library for NT or backup to auspex. Need to discuss and decide.

There are few schemes to choose: use xcopy with hard disk, use NT server and commercial software or write OEM scripts. At this point, the second scheme is most attractive. It's easier and can give us more capability in dealing with change and regular software distribution and updates. Need to try out and decide.

NT server run NFS client software or UNIX server run SMB based software? Can we eliminate SMB entirely? Is NetBIOS secure? Can we allow SMB and NetBIOS on our production net? What files should and need to be shared with UNIX?

Should we integrate account management with our centralized users account management and how? We will do seperate management in the near term, perhaps write some scripts to try to keep it consistent with our central database. In the long term, we need to solutions to users management across all platforms.

We will be running TCP/IP only. No NetBUI. We will have SMB and NetBIOS enabled, but NT systems will be on it's own subnet, so the use of SMB and NetBIOS can be contained.

The general priciple is to enable only what we need. Specifically, on the server, we have only enabled ftp and NT-native file sharing. When there is need for other services, we will discuss and decide then.

Where should applications reside and run to balance CPU/memory/disk utilization among client/server? What's the effective way of doing license management? We will install most frequently used applications on clients using reference system. Only those true client-server applications or applications with expensive licenses will be installed on the server.

The initial baseline applications will include Microsoft Office, anti-virus software, netscape, ftp, xterm, Eudora, winzip. Will add in more as new software passing our evaluations.