Throughout the exercises presented in these hand-outs, dCache will be installed only a single node. This was a pragmatic decision so we can accommodate as many people as possible.

Although dCache will work fine on a single machine one of the major benefits of running a dCache storage element is its ability to run on multiple machines and spread the work-load over them. Doing this well is technically challanging and dCache's scalability is a major benefit here.

The exercises presented here are realistic; broadly speaking, they should work whatever the size of dCache instance is being installed and configured. However, since the exercises use a single machine, the aspects of installing, configuring and administrating a dCache instance over multiple machines cannot be demonstrated. The documentation available at the dCache website provides the necessary additional information.