What is an applicaton partition?

blackzone

Heard this term when reading about windows server 2003.

Can't find any comprehensive informaton on the net. Can someone briefly tell what it is and what it do?

Thanx.

royal

It refers to dns. With windows 2000, when you created a dns zone you had to replicate dns to all Domain Controllers. With windows server 2003, it contains 2 built in directory partitions; one being DomainDnsZones and the other being ForestDnsZones. Therefore, you can specifiy the zone to replicate only to dns servers instead of all domain controllers. Also, when you have more than 1 DC, it'll store _msdcs in its own zone which will replicate to all dns servers in the forest, ForestDnsZones. Also, instead of creating delegations/stubzones to child domains allowing you to resolve dns lower in the namespace, you can just have your domains replicate among the whole forest using the ForestDnsZones partition. This of course uses more network bandwidth, but it's an option. You can also create custom partitions for your dns servers to replicate to. dnscmd /createdirectorypartition server and dnscmd /enlistdirectorypartition server for custom partitions. I could be a little more clearer but i'm tired and i'm writing this before I go to bed.

RussS

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Managing-Application-Directory-Partitions.html

Scroll down to about third page and there is a good description.

Danman32

Application partitions aren't specific to DNS, though W2K3 does default to including 2 partitions for DNS. Any application can have its own partition in AD for its own use.
Think of AD partitions like separate registry hives.