Two AD Controllers or not

  • Thread starter Thread starter Séan Connolly
  • Start date Start date
S

Séan Connolly

Hi all,

We have two physical sites that are linked by a 10 meg WiFi link. I need to
have these two sites on separate subnets mainly because I want the two sites to
have different default gateways (each site has its own internet link) assigned
by a DHCP server.

Assuming two subnets is the way to go, would I need to have an AD controller in
each subnet with DNS/DHCP/WINS etc on it, or will it suffice to have the AD
controller at the main site. Will users on the remote site still see browse
lists etc ?

As I understand it there is no need to create an extra AD site, as this is only
necessary when sites are connected by slow links.

Any ideas ?

Many thanks

S
 
Hi Sean-

In this case you wouldn't need a DC in the 2nd site. Keep in mind though you
do need to have a minimum of 2 DC's running for your domain (it's not clear
if you do have this or not).
 
Just to clarify my statement- it's only recommended and good practice to
have 2 DC's for fault-tolerance in a domain. It's not a requirement.
 
Just to clarify my statement- it's only recommended and good practice to
have 2 DC's for fault-tolerance in a domain. It's not a requirement.
Click to expand...


Yeah I have this (by accident rather than design, but there you go)

I presume that I'll need WINS running on the second site though to get a browse
list ?
 
I don't believe you would need another WINS server in the 3nd site for 2
reasons: 1) You only need WINS for legacy clients (i.e. NT4, 9x, 3.x), 2)
I'm assuming you each router on the 2 subnets have route tables to each
other hence the 2nd network will forward requests to the primary network, 3)
if you forward broadcasts then you can have your infrastructure stay in one
physical location\site\subnet.
 
Although you don't technically need to have a second DC
at your other site I would recommend having a second one
there. There are several reasons for this. The first
being redundancy in case your WiFi link goes down. Once
that link goes down it is possible your users will be
down at the secondary site. Depending on the size of
your directory, the user load, and what the DC roles will
be I would probably mirror what the DC does at your
primary site.

I hope this helps,
Richard
 
Although you don't technically need to have a second DC
at your other site I would recommend having a second one
there. There are several reasons for this. The first
being redundancy in case your WiFi link goes down. Once
that link goes down it is possible your users will be
down at the secondary site. Depending on the size of
your directory, the user load, and what the DC roles will
be I would probably mirror what the DC does at your
primary site.
Click to expand...


Ironically the link died today, so you may have a point !
 
Back
Top