HP Advanced Services zl Module with Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 Planning and Design Guide

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Branch Office Solutions with the Advanced Services zl Module with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2

Planning Your Services

You must decide which services you want to host locally on an HP Advanced

Services zl Module with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. The two main

benefits of deploying a branch Windows server are:

 Distributing services, making the services more responsive and relieving

congestion on the WAN link

 Ensuring survivability for services in the event of a WAN link failure

The sections below provide some guidelines for deciding which services could

benefit from distribution or survivability (or both) in your environment. Refer

to Microsoft guidelines on branch Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments for

more information.

Distributed Services

Your company policies might dictate a standard list of services for branch

offices, and the HP Advanced Services zl Module with Microsoft Windows

Server 2008 R2 supports any services that this Windows OS typically supports.

If you have not yet decided which services to deploy at the branch, you can

identify services that would benefits from distribution to each branch in a

number of ways.

First, consider which services compose the bulk of your WAN traffic. Are

employees continually accessing the same applications or files? If so, you

could host those files and applications on your module’s Windows Server 2008

R2 for quick, local access and a reduction in WAN traffic.

You might also approach the question of which services to distribute by

considering your employees’ greatest complaints about the network. Do they

find certain processes slow? Perhaps they are frustrated with how long it takes

to print. Many companies choose to distribute print services to the branch,

providing speedier response times and print caching. Localizing other com-

monly used applications might also help to increase productivity.

Because security solutions are more effective the closer they are to the

resources that they secure, many companies also deploy these solutions at

each branch. You can run solutions such as software-based firewalls and

antivirus solutions on the module’s Windows Server 2008 R2.

For a list of all services available on the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2,

go to www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/default.aspx.