Somedomain.com. If support for NetBIOS names is
required, a WINS server must be running on the network. If it isn??™t, connecting to a
machine by its NetBIOS name may not work.
DNS maps a fully qualified domain name (e.g., JAMESLAPTOP.Somedomain.com) to an IP
address and stores that information. This is a far more robust name-to-IP address-mapping
technique than WINS. If you??™re lucky, your network will have no need for WINS or
NETBIOS naming.
Why is name resolution important to disaster recovery? I don??™t think I can count the
number of times I??™ve been informed that my database server was down when really it
CHAPTER 10 n HARDWARE CONSIDERATIONS 262
was a problem with name resolution (either WINS or DNS was unavailable for some reason).
When someone tells you your server is down, check for yourself rather than taking
it on faith.
Routing and Firewalls
Ah, routing. I can??™t name how many times I??™ve run into an issue that ended in someone
mumbling, ???Oh, there just isn??™t a physical path defined.??? If that doesn??™t mean anything to
you, read closely.
Routers and switches are network devices that basically have information on where
the next step in the network communication path is.
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