You are the network administrator for Contoso, Ltd. The Contoso headquarters' network consists of a single domain, contoso.com, which is protected from the Internet by a firewall. The firewall runs on a computer named NS1 that is directly connected to the Internet. NS1 also runs the DNS Server service, and its firewall allows DNS traffic to pass between the Internet and the DNS Server service on NS1 but not between the Internet and the internal network. The DNS Server service on NS1 is configured to use round robin. Behind the firewall, two computers are running Windows Server 2003 - NS2 and NS3, which host a primary and secondary DNS server, respectively, for the contoso.com zone. Users on the company network report that, although they use host names to connect to computers on the local private network, they cannot use host names to connect to Internet destinations, such as https://www.microsoft.com.
Write a two to three (2-3) page paper in which you:
Formulate actions you would take using both the least and most amount of administrative effort to enable network users to connect to Internet host names. Discuss the trade-offs of using each.
Contoso, Ltd is growing and opening many additional satellite offices to help support employees in the field, although some pre-existing satellite offices still exist. At one of these offices last month, a server was configured for DHCP and was functioning normally. Five days ago, a test server on the same network segment was promoted to be the first domain controller on the network. Today, several users on the same subnet as the original DHCP server have complained that they are unable to obtain an IP address using DHCP. Assess the reason users are unable to obtain an IP address.
Contoso recently deployed a farm of centralized database servers containing customer information for all of its customers. Contoso's management has tasked you with determining the best way for the satellite offices to access these new centralized servers. Some satellite offices have dedicated broadband Internet connectivity, while other smaller offices still rely on modems and telephone lines. Propose each type of technology you can use to provide connectivity for those smaller offices that do not have broadband Internet and perform a simple cost-benefit analysis to determine the viability of using each type.
At one of the satellite offices, management has hired a rotating group of customer service employees who will be available to assist customers between the hours of 5 p.m. and 12 a.m., ET. Discuss a strategy about how you can allow these employees access to the network while preventing casual use of company resources by other employees.
Contoso's management wishes to cut down on support costs in the satellite offices by centralizing file backups of remote servers so that they are all performed from the corporate headquarters. However, remote IT staff is complaining that performing full backups of data over the WAN connections is taking too long, and is interfering with normal production work during the day if the backups do not finish in a timely manner. Explain how you can improve the process of performing centralized backups. Use the technologies described in Chapter 6 to support your answers.