SBO Design Considerations

The guidance provided in this section is specifically aimed at solving issues arising from the Satellite Branch Office (SBO) scenario as defined in the Introduction to Architecture Blueprints. This scenario currently does not support client workstation devices, and because there are no servers located in an SBO site there are very few devices to manage. In the SBO scenario, the only devices present are:

These devices are managed from the CDC management infrastructure across the WAN.

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	Business Need
	Architecture Definition
	Architecture Design
	Architecture Dependencies

Business Need

In an SBO design that uses centralized services from a CDC implementation, the business need is to design the networks and centralized tools to provide for management of the remote network devices, VPN, and firewalls. Additionally, the SBO scenario contains users who must be managed centrally.

Users in a geographically separated site that rely on services provided from a remote data center are more likely to have issues that originate from WAN network connectivity. A disruption in the WAN links or VPN services would seriously impair the functional abilities of the SBO clients. Centralized management of the networks and network devices should identify service events quickly, and incident response processes should be used to ensure fast and accurate responses to such events.

In the current scope of the SBO scenario, business needs for client management are not identified and therefore are not factored into the management architecture design. However, this does not mean client management should be ignored. Solutions that address client management can be found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/solutions

Refer to the Microsoft Windows XP Professional Resource Kit Documentation for more information on managing Windows XP, which can be found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prork_overview.asp

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Architecture Definition

Because the SBO design does not contain the servers that provide client services, there are no management service platforms hosted in the SBO design. As discussed in the "Enterprise Design" section in this blueprint, however, people, process, and tools are still necessary to manage the networks that connect the SBO users to the centralized services.

Remote administration tools such as Windows XP Remote Desktop Connection can be used to administer workstations if required. These tools will be addressed in a later release, as they are currently out-of-scope for this release of WSSRA. For information on how these remote control services can be used to manage servers in the enterprise, refer to the Infrastructure Management Services Blueprint. In addition to remote control, the CDC architecture can also be extended to provide services such as software distribution and backup to branch office client machines wherever applicable. This capability will be detailed in a future release of this documentation.

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Architecture Design

The design of a management architecture rarely needs to be modified to support branch offices. Modifications should be made at the service level to address specialized requirements and design issues that arise due to addition of a SBO design to an enterprise infrastructure.

However, the network architecture includes management of network bandwidth considerations and centralization of network device management interfaces in cases where the branch office uses services.

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Architecture Dependencies

Dependencies for management architecture were discussed in the "Enterprise Design" section in this blueprint. There are no additional dependencies for management architecture to support a branch office.

Scenario Dependencies

Branch offices use services provided through CDC implementation. They may or may not host services locally. The SBO scenario dictates that all management services are provided by the CDC implementation, and is completely dependent on these services. Therefore, a fully functional CDC implementation is required before starting an SBO implementation.

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