How many repllica servers are necesary in WAN

I'm the admin of a 7 location WAN covering hundreds of square miles. Each
location has a Windows 2008 standard install GC / fileserver. I currently
have 1 orignal and 4 replica installs of WSUS stratigically placed in the
WAN that cover the 185 WinXP workstations in these 7 locations. The
configuration seemes to perform well.

My question is... would it perform better with a WSUS replica in each
location? Or do I already have to much coverage in this configuration? Does
anyone have advice and/or experience with a simular configuration?

Thanks in advance!

-Tony

Tony wrote:

> I'm the admin of a 7 location WAN covering hundreds of square miles.
> Each location has a Windows 2008 standard install GC / fileserver. I
> currently have 1 orignal and 4 replica installs of WSUS stratigically
> placed in the WAN that cover the 185 WinXP workstations in these 7
> locations. The configuration seemes to perform well.
>
> My question is... would it perform better with a WSUS replica in each
> location? Or do I already have to much coverage in this configuration?
> Does anyone have advice and/or experience with a simular configuration?

Unless the WAN bandwidth is unusually low, you probably only need a single server.

Lawrence (who knows what he's talking about) usually only recommends installing
a local server at a site if the site has less than 5kb/sec bandwidth per client,
or 10kb/sec per client if you intend to use WSUS to deploy service packs.

In your scenario, you'll first want to choose the best site for the central WSUS
server. This would probably be either the site with the most machines, the site
with the best bandwidth to the internet, or the site where you are located.

Then consider whether any of the other sites have insufficient bandwidth to the
central server, or whether the total number of remote machines times 5kbs/10kbs
is more than the bandwidth of the site with the central server. If not, you
don't need any replica servers at all.

If you do need a replica server, choose the best site for it, then repeat the
same reasoning - remembering that you can point the clients in any particular
site towards either the central or the existing replica server. Rinse and repeat!

Harry.

"Tony" <> wrote in message
news:C3E63699-1A36-4D12-B1C3-...

> I'm the admin of a 7 location WAN covering hundreds of square miles.
> Each location has a Windows 2008 standard install GC / fileserver.

> I currently have 1 orignal and 4 replica installs of WSUS stratigically
> placed in the WAN that cover the 185 WinXP workstations in these
> 7 locations. The configuration seemes to perform well.
>
> My question is... would it perform better with a WSUS replica in each
> location?

Probably not.

> Or do I already have to much coverage in this configuration?

Probably.. IMHO. :-)

> Does anyone have advice and/or experience with a simular configuration?

Based on a number of theoretical and mathematical analyses I've done over
the past couple of years, and lacking any empirical evidence to the
contrary -- unless you've got a remote location that has less than 5kb/sec
of bandwidth per managed system -- my recommendation is to *not* deploy a
replica server, but simply direct those existing systems to the central
server.

A couple of considerations for exceptions:
- if the remote site has a fulltime onsite IT/Patch administrator, you might
deploy a downstream server

- if the remote site must have autonomous control of approvals and/or
deployments, you need to deploy a downstream server

- if the upstream WSUS server just doesn't have sufficient resources to
handle the load of the remote clients (in the case of only 185 remote
clients, this is not likely), you might deploy a downstream server; however,
it's probably more practical, and certainly less expensive, to simply add
additional resources to the upstream server.

A good reason for *not* deploying a replica server in your particular
scenario...
- your sites have one DC/GC/fileserver -- while WSUS is supported on domain
controllers -- it's not the most optimal of scenarios, and it would require
implementation of IIS7 on those DC/GC/fileserver machines -- also not the
most optimal of scenarios
- unless your intent is to deploy another physical server, or use Hyper-V to
run the WSUS server(s) in Virtual Machines; however, based on the scenario,
doing so is likely much more cost and maintenance expense than would justify
any possible benefits (and I really don't see any) of deploying replica
servers at the remote sites.

For additional information, I just finished a webcast (Aug 6th) that
discusses these and other deployment scenarios. You might find the webcast
of benefit. It can be viewed on-demand at
https://www.eminentware.com/cs2008/media/p/272.aspx


--
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCITP:EA, MCDBA
Principal/CTO, Onsite Technology Solutions, Houston, Texas
Microsoft MVP - Software Distribution (2005-2009)

MS WSUS Website: http://www.microsoft.com/wsus
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/pro...awrence.Garvin

"Harry Johnston [MVP]" <> wrote in message
news:...

> In your scenario, you'll first want to choose the best site for the
> central WSUS server. This would probably be either the site with the most
> machines, the site with the best bandwidth to the internet, or the site
> where you are located.
>
> Then consider whether any of the other sites have insufficient bandwidth
> to the central server, or whether the total number of remote machines
> times 5kbs/10kbs is more than the bandwidth of the site with the central
> server. If not, you don't need any replica servers at all.
>
> If you do need a replica server, choose the best site for it, then repeat
> the same reasoning - remembering that you can point the clients in any
> particular site towards either the central or the existing replica server.
> Rinse and repeat!

Harry, this is a great "How-To" addressing the question that I've only
answered in the To-Do-Or-Not-To-Do mentality!


--
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCITP:EA, MCDBA
Principal/CTO, Onsite Technology Solutions, Houston, Texas
Microsoft MVP - Software Distribution (2005-2009)

MS WSUS Website: http://www.microsoft.com/wsus
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/pro...awrence.Garvin

Lawrence Garvin [MVP] wrote:

>> In your scenario, you'll first want to choose the best site for the
>> central WSUS server. This would probably be either the site with the
>> most machines, the site with the best bandwidth to the internet, or
>> the site where you are located.
>>
>> Then consider whether any of the other sites have insufficient
>> bandwidth to the central server, or whether the total number of remote
>> machines times 5kbs/10kbs is more than the bandwidth of the site with
>> the central server. If not, you don't need any replica servers at all.
>>
>> If you do need a replica server, choose the best site for it, then
>> repeat the same reasoning - remembering that you can point the clients
>> in any particular site towards either the central or the existing
>> replica server. Rinse and repeat!
>
> Harry, this is a great "How-To" addressing the question that I've only
> answered in the To-Do-Or-Not-To-Do mentality!

Thanks. Feel free to steal it. :-)

Harry.