The Best Damn Windows Server 2003 Book Period- P68:The latest incarnation of Microsoft’s server product,Windows Server 2003, brings many new features and improvements that make the network administrator’s job chapter will briefly summarize what’s new in 2003 and introduce you to the four members of the Windows Server 2003 family: the Web Edition, the Standard Edition, the Enterprise Edition, and the Datacenter Edition. | 636 Chapter 19 Ensuring Active Directory Availability Monitoring the Database It s important to implement a consistent Active Directory monitoring strategy to ensure database integrity reliability and performance within your forest. Regular monitoring can also improve your knowledge of Active Directory and assist you in determining when a problem is in the early stages of unfolding. This will lead to performance and service issues being resolved in a much more timely manner. It is important to remember that Active Directory does not exist in a vacuum. Performance and service issues that seem to relate to Active Directory can be caused by other key infrastructure components such as name resolution services. In the following sections we look at some of the primary tools that you can use to monitor Active Directory. Using Event Viewer to Monitor Active Directory You can use the Windows Server 2003 Event Viewer tool is accessed via Start Programs Administrative Tools Event Viewer to view a variety of event logs on the DC. For monitoring the directory service the following event logs are of particular interest DNS Server This event log displays information relating to the DNS server service if it is installed on the DC. It is common in small environments and remote offices to have a single server acting as both DC and DNS server along with other roles . Because clients running Windows 2000 and later operating systems use DNS to locate DCs and GC servers problems with this service can severely impact Active Directory availability on the network. System This event log displays critical information concerning the state of the operating system as a whole. Examining the System log should be part of the review procedure because underlying system stability is critical to optimum functionality of a System event log is also used to display messages that notify you when the DC s DNS record was not registered or updated properly. Application This event log displays .
