Win2003 Feature lessens impact of DNS traffic?

RZetlin

I have stumbled onto another pratice question where I can find the answer to.

Which feature will lessen the impact of DNS traffic on network performance?

a) Dynamic DNS
b) IXFR
c) AXFR
d) Active Directory Integration

AXFR transfers the whole database over so this won't decrease network traffic.

Dynamic DNS and AD Integration doesn't have features to lessen the network traffic. Also a Dynamic DNS would have more traffic compared to a static DNS list.

IXFR seems only the reasonable choice since it only does increment updates to DNS.

mikey_b

IXRF will only transfer records which have changed since the last transfer, whihc will result in less network overhead.

Dynamic DNS allows hosts to register their records in DNS, it had nothing to do with network overhead.

AXFR transfers the entire zone, resulting in increased network overhead during zone transfers.

Active Directory Integration is the method in which a zone is stored (in this case, in Active Directory). In and of itself it does nothing to reduce network overhead. It does use IXFR though, if I'm not mistaken.

JLL

My selection would be D) Active Directory Integration.

The reason is because the question asks which feature would lessen the impact of DNS traffic. DNS traffic not only includes zone transfers which benefit from IXFR, but also includes DNS query traffic. Storing a DNS zone in Active Directory would cause zone transfers to occur using IXFR and the Fast Transfer Format (for Windows servers) which helps minimize transfer traffic. Storing the DNS zone in Active Directory would allow Domain Controllers to store a full authoritative copy of the DNS Zone which, if positioned strategically, can help load-balance and contain DNS query traffic.

JLuna

Danman32

Answer is AD integrated. With AD integrated, there are no zone transfers at all. All AD integrated zones get their data from AD, not from transfers. AD replication already occurs periodically, no need to add zone transfer traffic on top of that.

JLL

Danman32,

Thank you for the clarification. It makes perfect sense not to have Zone transfers when they are already being transferred through normal AD replication.

JLuna

RZetlin

But doesn't Active Directory still have to replicate that will produce traffic?

Danman32

AD has to replicate whether you replicate DNS separately or include it in the AD data. In other words, there will be only one replication instead of 2.

Would you rather ship two items in one box with one shipment, or two items in separate boxes with separate shipments, when you were going to ship the first box anyway?

RZetlin

I looked at the answer.... it's option B. I guess they were thinking about all the network traffic.

Danman32

Hmm, I think I had a practice question like this and the answer was AD integrated. However the question I had may have been worded differently enough to make the answer be D.