This one might only be more useful for larger environments but I think it could benefit about anybody with multiple locations. To understand where this is coming from let me take a moment to explain our general setup:

Tier 1:
1. Primary Data Center - Primary Servers are here
2. D/R Data Center - D/R Primaries and D/R DB are here

Tier 2: The main locations of each of our multiple organization. Direct links to both data centers, satellites deployed.

Tier 3:
Sub-locations off the tire 2 locations. They have a satellite but connect to the tier 2 location and are NOT allowed to pull ZCM content directly from the data centers.


Now Imagine you have roughly 200 of these locations which means you have roughly 200 Network Environments. Think about the 4 main roles for a minute...

CONFIGURATION: Well this role can only use Primary Servers. The way we have this is that at each of the Tier 1 DCs we have set number of servers dedicated to, and optimized for, this role. Every time we have create a new NE we have to populate this role with the exact same 2 groups and there is no variation to this.

CONTENT: Because we leverage proxy servers, this is a bit specific to us but each Tier 2 Location uses the local Satellites in a group. But each tier 3 location uses the local Satellites and then the tier 2 satellites,

AUTHENTICATION: (I assume we see the trend here) The Tier 2 locations use their local satellites in a group then they all have a group for the Primary DC then a group for the D/R DC. The Tier 3 locations use their local sat then (you guessed it....) their tier 2 satellites in a group then the Primary DCs in a group then the D/R DCs in a group.

etc etc

As you can see, this follows a pretty consistent and logical flow but it requires A GREAT DEAL of effort to maintain and even the slightest change can require dozens hours of labor to update all the NEs.

I would *LOVE* things be additive so we could set things at the higher levels. We could set CONFIGURATION in only one place, then we could define AUTHENTICATION at the top then at the Location (tier 2) then again at the Network Environment (tier 3). Then CONTENT and COLLECTION could be managed just at the Location and NE levels only.

by: Chad G. | over a year ago | Discovery and Deployment