OSF DCE Administration Guide--Introduction

Chapter 2. Global and Cell Considerations
The purpose of Chapters 2 through 5 is to assist you in planning for the installation,
configuration, and maintenance of DCE. For detailed information about installing the
DCE source tape and building DCE, refer to the OSF DCE Release Notes and the OSF
DCE Porting and Testing Guide. Part 2 of this guide describes the configuration
process, including installing executable files, setting up a DCE cell, and configuring
servers and clients.
This chapter discusses how to establish a DCE cell name. This chapter also describes
how the cell namespace is organized and provides guidelines for maintaining security
and replicating parts of the cell namespace. The last portion of this chapter discusses
what you need to consider as you plan for including DFS in your cell.
You need to answer a number of questions when planning for a distributed system. Your
answers to these questions determine the basic requirements of your user environment.
Keep in mind the following global considerations as you plan for DCE:
• How much do you think your environment will grow in the next few years? Do you
anticipate rapid or relatively slow expansion of your network?
If you think your environment will grow rapidly, consider setting up several cells
representing smaller units of your organization. You can manage these smaller units
as your network expands. As explained in the Introduction to OSF DCE, members
of each cell share a common purpose, and the cell is a unit of administration and
security. If you anticipate slow expansion of your network, you may be able to
establish one or more cells based on the organization that exists now. Consider
how many administrators you will need to maintain your DCE cell, based on
anticipated future growth.
• How much information does your environment have that needs to be
distributed? How much do the users in your network share information?
If there is a large volume of information that needs to be shared within your
network, consider the amount of disk space you require and the number of DFS
File Server machines you need.
• How much information updating do you require? Do the users in your network
mainly look up information, or do they create and change information at their
workstations?
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