DNS Zones - Multiple or one?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom
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T

Tom

Hello. We're planning AD rollout next week and are having a tough time
deciding how to design DNS. We have three sites, each with their own
subnet. Our Nashville site has about 900 PCs, Omaha has 13 PCs and Philly
has about 25. In testing, we tried setting up multiple zones, one for each
site (nash.xyz.com, omaha.xyz.com, etc) but we were then unable to resolve
from a PC in one zone to one in another zone. How do we resolve across
zones? With only 13 and 25 in the other sites, is there even a need to
create separate zones for them? If having 938 PCs in one zone is okay, it
would be prefeable to have them all in one zone.

Thanks,



Tom
 
In
Tom said:
Hello. We're planning AD rollout next week and are having a tough
time deciding how to design DNS. We have three sites, each with
their own subnet. Our Nashville site has about 900 PCs, Omaha has 13
PCs and Philly has about 25. In testing, we tried setting up
multiple zones, one for each site (nash.xyz.com, omaha.xyz.com, etc)
but we were then unable to resolve from a PC in one zone to one in
another zone. How do we resolve across zones? With only 13 and 25
in the other sites, is there even a need to create separate zones for
them? If having 938 PCs in one zone is okay, it would be prefeable
to have them all in one zone.
Thanks,

Tom
Click to expand...

Tom, my first question is do you want child domains at each location? If so,
I can understand why the need for the child zones, otherwise, if there is
only one AD domain for your company (even though you have multiple sites),
then the need for the child zones are not needed, therefore just the one
zone, (using the example zone name you posted), "xyz.com".

I suggest to put a DC/GC in those sites for your domain, and create AD Sites
to eliminate WAN authentication/logon traffic, which would isolate that sort
of traffic just to those DCs in their respective sites. I also suggest make
the 'xyz.com' zone AD integrated and install DNS on these servers at the
remote locations. If all the DCs are Win2003, I would store it in the
DomainDnsZones app partition (the middle button under the replication scope
button in the zone's properties). If Win2000, just make it AD Integrated.

I hope that helps.

--
Ace

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Ace Fekay, MCSE 2003 & 2000, MCSA 2003 & 2000, MCSE+I, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server Directory Services
Microsoft Certified Trainer
Infinite Diversities in Infinite Combinations.
=================================
 
Thanks Ace, that helps a lot. We will have only one root domain (XYZ.com)
and no child domains, so if it is no problem to have all nodes on one zone
then that makes it all less complicated!


"Ace Fekay [MVP]"
 
In
Tom said:
Thanks Ace, that helps a lot. We will have only one root domain
(XYZ.com) and no child domains, so if it is no problem to have all
nodes on one zone then that makes it all less complicated!
Click to expand...

In your scenario, it is the only way to go.

If you have any other concerns, please post back.

Ace
 
Hello. We're planning AD rollout next week and are having a
tough time
deciding how to design DNS. We have three sites, each with
their own
subnet. Our Nashville site has about 900 PCs, Omaha has 13
PCs and Philly
has about 25. In testing, we tried setting up multiple zones,
one for each
site (nash.xyz.com, omaha.xyz.com, etc) but we were then
unable to resolve
from a PC in one zone to one in another zone. How do we
resolve across
zones? With only 13 and 25 in the other sites, is there even
a need to
create separate zones for them? If having 938 PCs in one zone
is okay, it
would be prefeable to have them all in one zone.

Thanks,



To
Click to expand...

create 1 zone. that’s ok!
 
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