Infrastructure

Active Directory's replication and redundancy help reduce network traffic. With replicated Domain Controllers (DCs) , a user is able to authenticate to a device that is close to the user. This minimizes network traffic.

DNS plays a role in resolving hostnames. The Windows 2000 implementation of DNS takes advantage of Active Directory's capability to replicate and mirror DNS information. In addition, if using dynamic DNS (DDNS), DNS updates need only to travel to the closest DC. This is a big improvement over typical DNS implementations. The primary domain master functions as the central location for updating the environment. If your environment is across a WAN, the DNS updates need to travel to a single location, causing a networking bottleneck.