Active Directory and remote sites

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Guest

my company is about to deploy active directory in our network we have a total
of 23 systems and that seems to be no big deal to most but here is the kicker
there are 14 and the server at 1 location and 1 per site at 9 other sites.
What is the best solution i have been looking at VPN routers and this seems
to be a viable solution however I was wondering if there was a more effictive
way to do this and if so what would you do. I would appreciate any help you
could provide.
 
VPN Routers are fine.

Put one DC at each Location. Create Sites in Active Directory that
correspond to the Locations. Make sure each DC at the location is
associated with the correct Active Directory Site. Active Directory Sites
are used by Active Directory to maintain syncronization between DCs when
they are separated by slow WAN link,..of which VPN is certainly a "slow WAN
link".

We run over 20 locations via VPN, although our AD is separate for each
site,...each site is 100% independent and there isn't even any Trusts
between them.
 
there will be only 1 DC Total, we are not going to buy 9 Servers to run 9
different computers that is my problem, all the remote stores have 1 computer
no more no less, this is a oil company and these computers are at our
drilling sites.

Phillip Windell said:
VPN Routers are fine.

Put one DC at each Location. Create Sites in Active Directory that
correspond to the Locations. Make sure each DC at the location is
associated with the correct Active Directory Site. Active Directory Sites
are used by Active Directory to maintain syncronization between DCs when
they are separated by slow WAN link,..of which VPN is certainly a "slow WAN
link".

We run over 20 locations via VPN, although our AD is separate for each
site,...each site is 100% independent and there isn't even any Trusts
between them.

--

Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com


Ken D said:
my company is about to deploy active directory in our network we have a total
of 23 systems and that seems to be no big deal to most but here is the kicker
there are 14 and the server at 1 location and 1 per site at 9 other sites.
What is the best solution i have been looking at VPN routers and this seems
to be a viable solution however I was wondering if there was a more effictive
way to do this and if so what would you do. I would appreciate any help you
could provide.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
i guess the question i have is thru a VPN router will the remote systems be
able to use teh DC DNS servers and also the mail server
 
With that few machines at each site you will probably be fine. Just make
sure the VPN is a "Router-to-Router" (Site-to-site) VPN so that it is
transparent to the workstations.

Just have to keep in mind that VPN is dependent on the Internet which,
almost by definition, is undependable. You may need to consider how you
would operate if you had to put up with a period of the link being down, and
that will happen sooner or later. Having a DC at each site keeps the site
more functional if the link goes down.

--

Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com

Ken D said:
there will be only 1 DC Total, we are not going to buy 9 Servers to run 9
different computers that is my problem, all the remote stores have 1 computer
no more no less, this is a oil company and these computers are at our
drilling sites.

Phillip Windell said:
VPN Routers are fine.

Put one DC at each Location. Create Sites in Active Directory that
correspond to the Locations. Make sure each DC at the location is
associated with the correct Active Directory Site. Active Directory Sites
are used by Active Directory to maintain syncronization between DCs when
they are separated by slow WAN link,..of which VPN is certainly a "slow WAN
link".

We run over 20 locations via VPN, although our AD is separate for each
site,...each site is 100% independent and there isn't even any Trusts
between them.

--

Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com


Ken D said:
my company is about to deploy active directory in our network we have
Click to expand...
a
total
of 23 systems and that seems to be no big deal to most but here is the kicker
there are 14 and the server at 1 location and 1 per site at 9 other sites.
What is the best solution i have been looking at VPN routers and this seems
to be a viable solution however I was wondering if there was a more effictive
way to do this and if so what would you do. I would appreciate any
Click to expand...
help
you
could provide.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Ken D said:
i guess the question i have is thru a VPN router will the remote
systems be able to use teh DC DNS servers and also the mail server
Click to expand...

Yes it would work.

But if you run Exchange I would avoid running "Exchange Clients". Run the
mail clients using POP3/SMTP because it will be more efficient over the slow
link. Running as a "Exchange Client" uses more bandwidth,...it might
work,...you could try,...but I'm sceptical as to how good it would be. OWA
with Exchange could be a very good compromise between the other two options.
 
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