Building Site Link Bridges - Page 3
Jump-Starting Replication
So far, I've explained how to create a variety of different types of site links and site link bridges. Given the complexity of subdividing your network in this way, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. Remember, you're going through all this work for the sole purpose of reducing the amount of traffic flowing across your slow WAN links. Although reducing network traffic related to replication is a good thing, you don't want to completely stop the traffic--but if you don't set up the sites and site links correctly, that's exactly what will happen. Therefore, when you've completed all your hard work, you probably don't want to have to wait for several hours to find out if replication is working. Fortunately, there's a way to force replication to begin immediately.
To force immediate replication over a portion of your network, open the AD Sites and Services console and navigate to the site that you want to replicate your Active Directory information to or from. Once you've selected the appropriate site container, navigate to the Servers folder|a domain controller within the site|NTDS Settings. Now, right-click on NTDS Settings and select Replicate Now from the context menu.
Conclusion
Now that I've discussed sites, site links, and site link bridges, you can begin optimizing your own network by dividing it into sites. As I've just demonstrated, you can use the Replicate Now feature to quickly determine whether replication is working. If for some reason replication between the sites isn't working correctly, don't worry: In Part 4 ( Troubleshooting Active Directory Replication ), I'll discuss several troubleshooting techniques that you can use to track down the problem when replication fails. //
Brien M. Posey is an MCSE who works as a freelance writer. His past experience includes working as the director of information systems for a national chain of healthcare facilities and as a network engineer for the Department of Defense. Because of the extremely high volume of e-mail that Brien receives, it's impossible for him to respond to every message, although he does read them all.
