Windows 2000 Directory Services Design Analyzing Business Requirements  Analyze the existing and planned business models.  Analyze the company model and the geographical scope. Models include regional, national, international, subsidiary, and branch offices.  Analyze company processes. Processes include information flow, communication flow, service and product life cycles, and decision-making. Analyze the existing and planned organizational structures. Considerations include management model; company organization; vendor, partner, and customer relationships; and acquisition plans.  Analyze factors that influence company strategies.  Identify company priorities.  Identify the projected growth and growth strategy.  Identify relevant laws and regulations.  Identify the company's tolerance for risk.  Identify the total cost of operations. Analyze the structure of IT management. Considerations include type of administration, such as centralized or decentralized; funding model; outsourcing; decision-making process; and change-management process.  Analyzing Technical Requirements  Evaluate the company's existing and planned technical environment.  Analyze company size and user and resource distribution.  Assess the available connectivity between the geographic location of worksites and remote sites.  Assess the net available bandwidth.  Analyze performance requirements.  Analyze data and system access patterns.  Analyze network roles and responsibilities.  Analyze security considerations. Analyze the impact of Active Directory on the existing and planned technical environment.  Assess existing systems and applications.  Identify existing and planned upgrades and rollouts.  Analyze technical support structure.  Analyze existing and planned network and systems management. Analyze the business requirements for client computer desktop management.  Analyze end-user work needs.  Identify technical support needs for end-users.  Establish the required client computer environment. Designing a Directory Service Architecture Design an Active Directory forest and domain structure.  Design a forest and schema structure.  Design a domain structure.  Analyze and optimize trust relationships. Design an Active Directory naming strategy.  Establish the scope of the Active Directory.  Design the namespace.  Plan DNS strategy. Design and plan the structure of organizational units (OU). Considerations include administration control, existing resource domains, administrative policy, and geographic and company structure.  Develop an OU delegation plan.  Plan Group Policy object management.  Plan policy management for client computers. Plan for the coexistence of Active Directory and other directory services.  Design an Active Directory site topology.  Design a replication strategy.  Define site boundaries. Design a schema modification policy.  Design an Active Directory implementation plan.  Designing Service Locations  Design the placement of operations masters.  Considerations include performance, fault tolerance, functionality, and manageability.  Design the placement of global catalog servers.  Considerations include performance, fault tolerance, functionality, and manageability. Design the placement of domain controllers.  Considerations include performance, fault tolerance, functionality, and manageability. Design the placement of DNS servers.  Considerations include performance, fault tolerance, functionality, and manageability.  Plan for interoperability with the existing DNS.