The frequency of WINS database replication between WINS servers is a major planning issue. The WINS server database should be replicated frequently enough that the down-time of a single WINS server does not affect the reliability of the mapping information in the database of other WINS servers. However, when planning WINS database replication frequency, you do not want frequency of database replication to interfere with network throughput, which could happen if replication frequency is set to a small time interval.
Consider the network topology when planning for replication frequency. For example, if your network has multiple hubs connected by relatively slow wide-area-network (WAN) links, you can configure WINS database replication between WINS servers on the slow links to occur less frequently than replication on the local area network or on fast WAN links. This reduces traffic across the slow link and reduces contention between replication traffic and WINS client name queries.
For example, WIN servers at a central local-area-network site may be configured to replicate every 15 minutes, while database replication between WINS servers in different WAN hubs might be scheduled for every 30 minutes, and replication between WINS servers on different continents might be scheduled to replicate twice a day. The following figure illustrates this example of variation in replication frequency.
Figure 8.5 Enterprise Network Configuration and WINS Server Replication