Universal Group Membership Caching Feature
Due to network bandwidth and server hardware limitations, it might not be practical to have a global catalog in small remote office locations. The universal group membership caching feature, new in Windows Server 2003, allows a site that does not contain a global catalog server to be configured to cache universal group memberships for users who log on to the domain controller in the site. This ability allows a domain controller to process user logon requests without contacting a global catalog server when a global catalog server is unavailable. The cache is refreshed periodically as determined in the replication schedule. This feature eliminates the need to deploy global catalog servers into smaller remote office locations in order to avoid logon failures in the event that the network link connecting the remote site to the rest of the organization is disconnected. The universal group membership caching feature must be set for each site and requires a domain controller to run a Windows Server 2003 operating system. When a user attempts to log on the first time after a Windows Server 2003 domain controller has been configured to enable the universal group membership caching feature, the domain controller microsoft exams obtains the universal group membership information for the user from a global catalog. The universal group membership information is then cached on the domain controller for the site indefinitely and is periodically refreshed. The next time the user attempts to log on, the authenticating Windows Server 2003 domain controller obtains the universal group membership information from its local cache without contacting a global catalog.
By default, the universal group membership information contained in the cache of each domain controller is refreshed every eight hours. To refresh the cache, domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 send a universal group membership confirmation request to a designated global catalog. Up to 500 universal group memberships can be updated at once.
The universal group membership caching feature provides the following benefits to remote office locations:
Faster logon times, because the authenticating domain controllers no longer need to access a global catalog to obtain universal group membership information
No need to upgrade hardware of existing domain controllers to handle the extra system requirements necessary for hosting a global catalog Minimized network bandwidth usage, because a domain controller does not have to handle replication for all of the MCITP certification
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