Guidelines for Partitioning and Replicating Your Tree

The following guidelines are only rules of thumb for most networks. However, depending on your network's specific configuration, hardware, and traffic throughput, you may need to adjust some guidelines to fit your needs.

Guidelines for Partitioning

Location

• In a network with WAN links, partitions should not span multiple locations
• Partition locally around the servers (keep physically distant servers in separate partitions)
• Place fewer partitions at the top of the tree with more at the bottom

Size

• Keep partition sizes small
• The root of the current tree partition should remain small
• Typically, a partition should have fewer than 1,500 objects, and no more than 3,500
• Typically, a partition should have fewer than 10-15 subordinate partitions, and no more than 40

Example

The following graphic shows a typical tree structure. Note how the Sales Organizational Unit is a partition. This could be because the Sales OU is across a WAN link, or because it has a large number of User objects in it.

Replication Guidelines

• Replicate locally, not across a WAN link (Replicas across a WAN link have to send/receive NDS synchonization information, which can slow down network traffic across a WAN link)
• If possible, place master replicas physically close to the master of parent and child partitions

Number

• Always keep 2 or 3 replicas per partition, and no more than 10
• Never store more than 10 replicas on a server