updating to 2003

anon · Jan 16, 2006

i'm faced with the task of updating windows 2000 advanced server (with 2
active directory/fileservers clustered together in failover configuration).

since the domain they have set up is sales.company.com, i'm probably just
going to start them on a new domain as per todays standard such as
company.local or company.corp. any recommendations for which naming scheme
i should use?

also, i'm pretty sure i should just start a brand new domain structure from
scratch to ensure that there are no previous "ghosts" or some such floating
around waiting to deliver the hammer. does anyone have books or other
reading related for planning and deploying such and move?

-a

Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] · Jan 17, 2006

In

anon said:
i'm faced with the task of updating windows 2000 advanced server
(with 2 active directory/fileservers clustered together in failover
configuration).

since the domain they have set up is sales.company.com, i'm probably
just going to start them on a new domain as per todays standard such
as company.local or company.corp. any recommendations for which
naming scheme i should use?

Well, if sales.company.com doesn't exist on the Internet for any useful
purpose, no harm in leaving it in place as your AD DNS namespace. It may
actually be preferable over using .local or .kitten or .whatnot. I often
use internal.company.com or local.company.com.

also, i'm pretty sure i should just start a brand new domain
structure from scratch to ensure that there are no previous "ghosts"
or some such floating around waiting to deliver the hammer.

Why? Are you worried that the current installation is full of problems?
Don't make more work for yourself ...I'm no clustering expert, but I think
you don't want to muck around with something that works.

anon · Jan 18, 2006

Well, if sales.company.com doesn't exist on the Internet for any useful

purpose, no harm in leaving it in place as your AD DNS namespace. It may
actually be preferable over using .local or .kitten or .whatnot. I often
use internal.company.com or local.company.com.

ok, point taken. but why do you prefer local.company.com over
company.local? i think the .com makes it confusing.

Why? Are you worried that the current installation is full of problems?
Don't make more work for yourself ...I'm no clustering expert, but I think
you don't want to muck around with something that works.

i don't think the current situation is really "bad" as it does perform it's
required duties just fine. the main problem i've seen is that there are
"ghost" images of old domain controllers that are no longer present and
cannot be deleted. i went through the ms kb article and removed them
manually, but every now and then after server restarts they'll pop back up
(but not every time, just at seemingly random maybe even months later after
many variations of shutdowns and reboots). also, there are only 25
computers in the office and there are maybe 60-70 computers registered in
active directory, same with user accounts. since i'm going to be resident
for a while, it might be good for me to make a serious auditing of these
objects and i thought moving to a new DC would help in finding which ones
were actually required, migrating the objects one or so at a time.

it would also be nice to be able to take advantage of windows 2003 features
such as volume shadow copy for daily backups (they have a problem now where
at least one person a day forgets to log out of their database software and
their backups are rendered ineffecive). but the main reason i want to move
is for a sense spring cleaning... if that holds any logic.

really, for all of my nagging and minor details, i have no problem with
leaving the current situation in tact. but it would make me feel better if
i knew exactly everything under the hood of that network, i would be more
confident in making future changes, etc.

so back to my original question. any reading that you could recommend that
relates to this type of operation? i would be most appreciative if anyone
knows of or can find anything...

-a

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] · Jan 18, 2006

In

anon said:
ok, point taken. but why do you prefer local.company.com over
company.local? i think the .com makes it confusing.

Does it? I don't think so. You can use .local if you wish, but it is frowned
on by many DNS folks outside of MS-land - and it makes it difficult to
integrate Macs into your network, should you choose to do that.

i don't think the current situation is really "bad" as it does
perform it's required duties just fine. the main problem i've seen
is that there are "ghost" images of old domain controllers that are
no longer present and cannot be deleted.

i went through the ms kb
article and removed them manually,

Which one? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;216498 ?

but every now and then after
server restarts they'll pop back up (but not every time, just at
seemingly random maybe even months later after many variations of
shutdowns and reboots).

Presuming you followed that article (link above) this shouldn't happen.
Event log errors?

also, there are only 25 computers in the
office and there are maybe 60-70 computers registered in active
directory, same with user accounts. since i'm going to be resident
for a while, it might be good for me to make a serious auditing of
these objects and i thought moving to a new DC would help in finding
which ones were actually required, migrating the objects one or so at
a time.

A new DC won't necessarily help this. A new *domain* makes it irrelevant,
but creates a huge amount of work, especially as it sounds like you have
more than one site.

it would also be nice to be able to take advantage of windows 2003
features such as volume shadow copy for daily backups (they have a
problem now where at least one person a day forgets to log out of
their database software and their backups are rendered ineffecive).
but the main reason i want to move is for a sense spring cleaning...
if that holds any logic.

really, for all of my nagging and minor details, i have no problem
with leaving the current situation in tact. but it would make me
feel better if i knew exactly everything under the hood of that
network, i would be more confident in making future changes, etc.

Now that, I fully understand and agree with. Start with your event logs.
Dcdiag and netdiag (resource kit - you can download them from MS) will
likely help. So will the MBSA (also free).

so back to my original question. any reading that you could
recommend that relates to this type of operation? i would be most
appreciative if anyone knows of or can find anything...

-a

I can't recommend any books, really, unless you want to look for something
that explains how to set up a domain from scratch.

You're going to be making a lot of work for yourself if you choose to create
an entirely new domain. I'd personally fix the problem with the existing
one, and then install a W2003 server ....see
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Forestprep-Domainprep-Explained.html for
how to upgrade your domain to use a W2003 domain controller.

If you choose not to, you can just set up a W2003 domain controller in an
entirely new domain and have a really long weekend and annoy all your users.

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

In

Well, if sales.company.com doesn't exist on the Internet for any
useful purpose, no harm in leaving it in place as your AD DNS
namespace. It may actually be preferable over using .local or
.kitten or .whatnot. I often use internal.company.com or
local.company.com.

Why? Are you worried that the current installation is full of
problems? Don't make more work for yourself ...I'm no clustering
expert, but I think you don't want to muck around with something
that works.

Click to expand...