New server at remote site AD questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter BG250
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B

BG250

We're a small company (60 people) with 10 people in a remote office. They
operate as their own entity, but we have a WAN link so they can access files
on the home office server. We have two Windows NT4 servers. One is in the
remote office. They are separate DCs.



I have since installed a new server Win2k3 with AD in the home office. I am
now working on replacing the server in the remote office. I'm trying to
decide the best way to setup AD on the remote box.



The domain of the home server is: servername1.homeoffice.mycompany.com

I'm leaning toward having the server in a new domain using the *Domain tree
in an existing forest* option. If I understand correctly, it would be:
servername2.remoteoffice.mycompany.com This keeps the domains separate, yet
under our corporate name mycompany.com



A couple concerns I have are: 1 the UNC path name must be the same as the
old server due to data links. The old server will be removed before the new
one is connected to avoid NetBIOS name conflicts.



Secondly, I'm not sure about replication or how to control it. I see no need
for it in our case. I don't really want our home office user accounts
replicated to this server. One person in that office has some time assigned
for managing that server.



Does it sound like I'm moving in the right direction?



Any recommended reading (book or Web) to the AD beginner?



Thanks for your input. BG
 
This approach you're taking isn't a good one, in my opinion.

You really don't need two domains, and it's just going to make things more
difficult. Setup the new server at the other office as a second domain
controller for the existing domain. You can then create an OU for all the
objects at the remote office, and put them all in there (i'd create an OU
for the home office as well and do the same thing). You should also create a
site and subnet object for the remote office, and assign the second dc to
that site. This will control replication and logon traffic over the WAN. You
should also mark this second DC as a global catalog.

Even if you chose to put a second domain inplace at the other side of the
wan link, you would still incur enterprise wide replication traffic. Given
an organization of your size, replication traffic shouldn't be an issue. You
can certainly set the site link to replicate four times a day, or something
like that (you can actually make it as little as once a week, but that
wouldn't make much sense here).

--
--
Brian Desmond
Windows Server MVP
(e-mail address removed)12.il.us

Http://www.briandesmond.com
 
Thanks for the information. If do add the second domain controller, can I
keep the NetBIOS name the same as the old server so the data links are not
broken such as databases and linked spread sheets?
John
 
Sure. When you do this, four step process:

Shut down the old box
Delete the old WINS record
Delete the old DNS
Startup the new box

If you need to transfer data, just give the new box a temp name for the
robocopy. If you can, connect them via x-over cable, makes the copy alot
faster.

--
--
Brian Desmond
Windows Server MVP
(e-mail address removed)12.il.us

Http://www.briandesmond.com
 
Thanks for sharing the information.
I bought a book, "Mastering Active Directory for Windows 2003"
Looks good. I wish I had more time to read it!
bg
 
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