User Guide for Trainee Network Administrators - DHCP, WINS, IIS, Proxy

1.1 Intranets are Becoming More and More Popular
“As the strategic importance of information as a corporate asset to be leveraged
for competitive advantage becomes clearer to senior management, the key role
played by local area networks (LANs) to deliver that precious information to the
right place and time has become equally clear” (Goldman, Rawles, 2000, p. 11).
Since Intranets can provide secure and fast internal communication for
companies and since it can save cost at different parts of the company due to
resource sharing for example, Intranets become more and more popular among
all sizes of companies. Intranet growth even exceeds the rate of Internet
growth.
1.2 Procedure and Aim of this Report
To get their Intranets up and running companies need competent and highly
skilled network administrators. They are needed not only to set up the Intranet
but also to maintain it, to give user support, and to update soft- and hardware.
This report’s goal is to lay the foundations for the skills needed to become a
network administrator. It can be used as an introduction for new trainee network
administrators. Therefore, it will explain how to use and test Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS), the
Internet Information Server (IIS) and Proxy servers. It will focus on Microsoft
products in an Windows NT 4.0 environment. Furthermore, the report will
explain, why these servers and services should be included in a company’s
Intranet. However, the report will not give detailed technical explanations on
these services, but provide a general overview.