Large workgroup

[Jon Gerdes]

We currently have around 3,500 NT PCs in a variety of workgroups.  We don't use the domain model because we do minimal file/print from NT servers.  I do have several Samba servers for things like anti-virus updates.

I am considering creating a single large workgroup to hold the lot.  I thought of using VLAN tagging to put a Samba server on all our LANs (I know this works reliably)

The way I see it, if my Samba daemon dies then the backup browsers will take over and the single large workgroup will fragment temporarily into one per subnet.  Then when nmbd comes back it will force and win a series of browser elections.  In the mean time the WINS server will take care of look ups.  All nodes are "P" type so I'm not worried about broadcast storms resulting.

I am aware that MS have a sizing recommendation of I think around 200 but I am not really concerned about browsing performance for clients.  The main user of browsing is me to check on AV status etc.  So the real point of the excercise is administrative ease.

Now the question is, has anyone tried a workgroup of this size or have any points I might like to consider ?  I will of course post back any results if anyone is interested.