Replacing WINS in an Open Environment with Policy Managed DNS Servers

In some environments, Windows workstations require placement on the open internet. In order to protect the read-write domain controllers, administrators locate them in a protected enclave behind a firewall, and read-only domain controllers authenticate workstations during day-to-day operations. While this is strong protection for the read-write domain controllers, the configuration breaks the standard dynamic DNS registration of Windows workstations with the read-write domain controller. In our environment, we have maintained WINS servers linked to Windows DNS via the WINS lookup function to continue finding workstations by name. The TechNet page on WINS (Davies, 2011) was last updated almost nine years ago, and Microsoft has been actively encouraging the abandonment of WINS (Ross & Mcillece, 2020). This paper explores Windows DNS Policies to replacing WINS with Dynamic DNS and policy-controlled responses to queries. Utilizing source IP addresses, DNS policies can regulate the provided answers. The operability of DNS Policies and the applicability to this solution is evaluated in depth.