The Importance of Network Addressing
Regardless of whether Microsoft, UNIX, Mac, or a
different operating system provides the network backbone, network
addressing is the key to intercomputer communication. Anything and
everything about computer networking is based on locating and accessing
resources stored on multiple systems so that users can collaborate and
share information. This is possible with network addressing and, to
make it simpler, name resolution.
With today’s infrastructure consisting of
both local company-owned resources intertwining with cloud or
Internet-based hosted applications, name resolution is key to
successful functionality for computer systems and users on these
networks.
IP address management has always
been a task associated with managing an organization’s network. Until
now, however, this task has mostly been performed by relying on WINS
and DNS records and on text files, spreadsheets, custom applications or
databases, and third-party products. Microsoft Windows Server 2012
includes the IPAM feature, which provides administrators with a
centralized complete view of the IP landscape, to not just to keep
track of IP addresses, but also to audit changes and implement changes
through the one central console.
Name Resolution
Name resolution refers to the
identification of a network-connected system by a friendly name as
opposed to a network address. Connecting to a network resource by its
actual network address is possible within certain constraints, but with
today’s security and application features and functionality, connecting
to a system by its name is not only ideal, it may be required. For
example, in many common hosted implementations, a single network
address may resolve to many different names and present different
applications, websites, and services based each unique name.
Name resolution is the resolution of
a network-connected resource by name and a matched IP address or a
different name or alias name. This could be a short name such as
WEBSERVER1 or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) such as www.companyabc.com resolving to an IP address of 10.1.1.10.
Name Resolution and Directory Integration
With Microsoft Active Directory (AD)
and many networking services, name resolution provides detailed
information about how to connect to a particular service. For example,
with Windows Server 2012 DNS servers and clients, a client system
looking to find a Global Catalog server is presented not only with a
list of names and IP addresses, it is also provided with the closest
system to the network the system is connected to, and it also presents
the port the client can connect to that service on. So, instead of just
a name to IP address, advanced name-resolution
services can make distinctions of the client location and provide a
detailed response that improves network connectivity.
Network Services Changes in Windows Server 2012
With each new version of the Windows Server
operating system, Microsoft improves on the previous release. With
Windows Server 2012, Microsoft maintains this tradition and has made a
substantial improvement in DHCP services. Windows Server 2012 DHCP
services now include a new type of service redundancy named DHCP
failover. In the previous DHCP release included with Windows Server
2008 R2, Microsoft introduced a Split-Scope Wizard and a response delay
that allowed DHCP administrators to enable redundancy, but some
features such as reservations and active leases were still managed
separately. Another option was and still is to deploy DHCP services on
a failover cluster, but that adds on the complications of managing a
failover cluster system and leveraging a shared storage subsystem or an
external data replication system.
With Windows Server 2012 DHCP
failover, redundancy is achieved through the DHCP services on each
system monitoring and updating one another on leases, reservations,
scope settings, and service availability. This makes this new
enhancement a great addition to the many new features and services
already included in the DHCP server role.
Windows Server 2012 IPAM Overview
The IPAM feature included with
Windows Server 2012 provides network administrators with a single
centralized console from which they can view and manage the IP
addresses of the entire enterprise. This feature supports the discovery
of servers providing IP-related services and includes tasks to collect
and organize data from these servers in single functional console. The
IPAM feature collects data from DNS, DHCP, domain controller (DC) and
Network Policy Server (NPS) servers that are registered to the
particular IPAM server and presents the data in several default views
that are searchable and easily manipulated and exportable. IP address
audit tracking and even changes to existing service configurations and
records are just a few of the tasks that this new feature enables.
