Microsoft windows 2000 DNS manual DNS Fundamentals

DNS FUNDAMENTALS	The designers of the Microsoft ® Windows® 2000 operating system chose the
	Domain Name System (DNS) as the name service for the operating system.
	Windows 2000 Server includes an IETF standard-based Domain Name System
	Server. Because it is RFC compliant it is fully compatible with any other RFC
	compliant DNS servers. Use of the Windows 2000 Domain Name System server is
	not mandatory. Any DNS Server implementation supporting Service Location
	Resource Records (SRV RRs, as described in an Internet Draft “A DNS RR for
	specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)”) and Dynamic Update (RFC2136) is
	sufficient to provide the name service for Windows 2000–based computers1.
	However, because this implementation of DNS is designed to fully take advantage
	of the Windows 2000 Active Directory® service, it is the recommended DNS server
	for any networked organization with a significant investment in Windows or extranet
	partners with Windows-based systems. For example, while conventional DNS
	Servers use single-master replication, Windows 2000 DNS can be integrated into
	Active Directory service, so that it uses the Windows 2000 multi-master replication
	engine. (Note that the Active Directory supports multi-master replication.) In this
	way, network managers can simplify system administration by not having to
	maintain a separate replication topology for DNS.
	DNS in Windows 2000 provides a unique DNS Server implementation that is fully
	interoperable with other standards-based implementations of DNS Server. Some
	special interoperability issues are discussed later in this paper.
	The purpose of this document is to assist network architects and administrators in
	planning the Windows 2000 Active Directory service DNS deployment strategy. It
	covers the design, implementation, and migration issues that need to be considered
	when rolling out a scalable and robust DNS solution as a global name service.
	While this paper assumes familiarity with DNS, it provides a quick overview of the
	DNS basics in ”DNS Fundamentals”. The Windows 2000 implementation of DNS
	supports various new features (as compared to Windows NT® 4.0 operating
	system) described in ”New Features of the Windows 2000 DNS.” It includes the
	description of Active Directory integration and incremental zone transfer (IXFR),
	dynamic (including secure) update and Unicode character support, enhanced
	Domain Locator, caching resolver service and DNS Manager. It provides the
	detailed overview of the name resolution process. It also describes the support for
	secure DNS management. It includes an overview of the various issues associated
	with designing namespace for the Active Directory. It includes integration of Active
	Directory with existing DNS structure and migration to the Windows 2000
	implementation of DNS, design of the private namespaces and necessary DNS
	support.

1Berkeley Internet Name Domain - BIND 8.1.1 DNS Server implementation supports both SRV RRs and Dynamic Update, but it dumps core when Windows 2000-based clients send certain updates to it. 8.1.2 is the first BIND version that works reliably.

Windows 2000 White Paper

1