User Guide

Optimizing 115
Novell DNS/DHCP Management Utility Administration Guide
103-000164-001
September 4, 2001
Novell Confidential
Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001
4 Optimizing
You can optimize the performance of Novell
®
DNS/DHCP Services software
by using state-of-the-art servers. We highly recommend that you use a server
with a 200 MHz (or higher) Pentium* processor with 64 MB of memory. If
your network configuration is large, more memory might provide improved
performance.
For optimum performance, the designated server should be the most powerful
server available. The designated server is the only server in a given tree that
performs Dynamic DNS updates and zone transfers of secondary zone
information.
The I/O subsystem of the servers can also be an issue for server performance.
If you use both DNS and DHCP functions of Netware
®
6, you will increase
the number of eDirectory
TM
objects and thereby increase the disk space
requirements of your SYS: volume.
Because the DNS and DHCP servers cache the required eDirectory data from
disk into system memory, access to this information is not slowed.
Optimizing DNS Performance
Although there is no limit to the size of a zone when you configure DNS, we
recommend that you limit the size of any zone to no more than 5,000 objects.
If you have a zone with more than 5,000 objects, dividing the objects between
two zones will improve performance.
Optimizing DHCP Performance
Although there is no limit to the size or number of subnets when you configure
DHCP, we recommend that you limit the number of objects within a single