Specifications

Chapter 4 Open Directory Planning and Management Tools 57

In many organizations, a single shared directory domain is adequate. It can handle

hundreds of thousands of users and thousands of computers sharing the same

resources, such as printer queues, share points for home directories, share points for

applications, and share points for documents.

Replicating the shared directory domain can increase the capacity or performance of

the directory system by conguring multiple servers to handle the directory system

load for the network.

Larger, more complex organizations can benet from extra shared directory domains.

The following gure shows how one such complex organization might organize its

directory domains.

Mac OS X user

Windows user

Mac OS X Server

Windows server

Active

directory

domain

If you have a large organization and you want to increase the performance and

capacity of your network directory domain, you can add multiple directory domains

to your network. Also, by using multiple directory domains you can load-balance your

corporate directory domain.

There are dierent methods of conguring multiple directory domains. By analyzing

your network topology you can determine the best method for your network. The

following are optional congurations of multiple directory domains:

Â Open Directory with an existing domain. You can congure a Mac OS X Open

Directory server on a network that has an existing directory domain such as an

Active Directory or Open Directory domain.

For example, if your organization has an existing Active Directory server that

supports Windows and Mac OS X client computers, you can add a Mac OS X

Open Directory server to better support Mac users. The two servers can exist on

the same network and provide redundant directory domains for Windows and

Mac OS X clients.