Managing Your Network with the MMC
The key to managing network services in NT 5.0 is the MMC. You can use an MMC snap-in to manage all the networking features I've described. Another MMC snap-in tool, Network Services Management, groups several network services tools within one console. Although MMC snap-ins are the preferred tools for managing and configuring network services in NT 5.0, these snap-ins can't replace more robust network-management tools such as HP's OpenView, Cisco Systems' CiscoWorks, or IBM's NetView. MMC snap-ins are tools specifically geared toward configuration management of NT 5.0 network services, rather than tools for generically monitoring all the network devices in your infrastructure.
Network Services Management Snap-in
The Network Services Management tool provides one console from which you can manage Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS), telephony options, RAS, and DHCP and WINS. Screen 4 shows the administration window for network services.
Routing and Remote Access. The Routing and Remote Access extension of the Network Services Management tool lets you monitor RAS connections on a given server and manage the routing function NT 5.0 provides. When you use this extension, you can view the current routes the server uses, define new static routes, or add new routing protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) or Routing Information Protocol (RIP). You can also enable multicast support on a specific server interface. You use the RAS component of the Routing and Remote Access extension to configure machine-specific RAS settings (e.g., which communication ports to use) and to monitor users dialing into and out of a single machine. The Routing and Remote Access extension augments the Remote Access Policies tool.
Telephony. The Network Services Management tool contains a telephony extension. This extension lets you manage your users, lines, and multiple telephony service providers. Using the extension, you can also configure and manage new telephony providers.
Remote Access Policies. The Remote Access Policies extension lets you set usage policy on a per-machine basis for RAS or VPN services. Using this extension, you can configure options such as the time of day or day of the week when dial-in is permitted, and you can enable RAS on a server. Also, you can create a profile for each RAS policy you define. Creating a profile gives you more fine-grain control of your RAS and VPN users: for instance, which authentication protocol they need to use and how long they can stay connected per session. You can define multiple RAS policies for a given server and the order in which you want them applied. With profiles, you can create targeted policies to keep a tight rein on your RAS users.
WINS and DHCP support. The Network Services Management snap-in enables support for both WINS and DHCP. Many of the features of WINS and DHCP that you are familiar with in NT 4.0 remain in NT 5.0. Although NT 5.0 does not require the NetBIOS-based WINS services, NT 5.0 provides the service to provide backward compatibility with WINS devices. When you've upgraded all of your clients and servers to NT 5.0, you can disable your WINS servers and never have to think about them again. But until that day arrives, NT 5.0 improves on the capabilities available in WINS, giving you such features as the ability to delete individual records from an owner and a more intuitive interface for viewing records that multiple WINS servers own.
DHCP support in the Network Services Management snap-in gives you the ability to define scopes, scope options, and global options. As in NT 4.0, you can view active leases, and delete leases. And in NT 5.0, you can have DHCP automatically update NT 5.0's DNS service—both forward and reverse maps—when a client gets or renews a DHCP lease.
Managing DNS
DNS Manager is a separate MMC snap-in tool, which Screen 5 shows. DNS takes on a new role in NT 5.0, becoming the primary name service for NT. With DNS's rise in importance, the tools with which you'll manage DNS in NT 5.0 have increased in functionality and capability. DNS Manager provides much of the management control you would expect to see in a DNS server, including the ability to create new primary and secondary zones, to statically enter resource records, and to configure global options for the DNS service. In addition, NT 5.0 adds some new twists to DNS, including support for dynamic DNS (to learn more about dynamic DNS, see Sean Daily, "10 Steps to Prepare for NT 5.0 Now," February 1998). You'll also find support for hosting your DNS zones files within AD. You no longer need to deal with primary and secondary servers, whereby primaries push changes in zone information to secondaries. Rather, with zone files hosted by AD, DNS zone information replicates via AD's replication schedule to all the domain controllers within your environment.
Most of the Tools You Need
MMC provides a convenient single-interface method to configure and manage network services specific to NT 5.0. Although the tools I've described don't provide some of the features you'll need to manage your entire network infrastructure, I think you'll find them to be quite an improvement over earlier versions. Managing NT networks is slowly but surely getting easier.