NetWare Directory Services

3-7
Understanding Management Features
Partition Replicas
Partition Replicas
When you create a partition, you create a master replica of that segment of
the Directory tree and database. You can create an unlimited number of
additional replicas of the partitions on your network and store them on any
NetWare 4 servers on the network.
Purpose
Replicas are created for two reasons:
• Directory Fault Tolerance. If a hard disk crashes or a server goes down, a replica
on another server can still authenticate users to the network and provide
information about Directory objects.
With the same information distributed on several servers, you are not dependent
on any single server being up to authenticate you to the network or to provide
services to you.
You can store more than one replica on each server.
CAUTION: Directory replication does not provide fault tolerance for the file system. Only
information about Directory objects is replicated.
To provide fault tolerance for your files, you must use the host system’s fault
tolerance system.
• Faster Access Across a WAN Link. If users currently use a WAN link to access
some Directory information, you can decrease access time and WAN traffic by
placing a replica containing the needed information on a server that users can
access locally.
However, in some cases, WAN traffic could increase due to the NDS
synchronization process.
Distributing replicas among servers on the network allows quick and reliable
access because information is retrieved from the nearest available server
containing the specified information.