Windows® 2000 Active Directory™

Sites Explained

Sites define areas within an organization that have high network bandwidths. It is necessary to define these high bandwidth areas of the network so that DCs can take advantage of this high bandwidth when communicating with other DCs in the same site. Likewise, by defining sites, DCs can conserve network bandwidth when communicating between sites. Sites do not define what is replicated, domains do that, but sites do define how the directory data is replicated and how much effort is put forth by the DCs to conserve network bandwidth.

Sites also define where clients access domain resources. When a client logs on, the client contacts a DC in its site. If a DC is not available in the client's site, the client attempts to contact ...