Upgrading multiple NT domains to single Win 2000 AD

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Guest

I currently run 8 NT domains across several sites and intend upgrading all
these domains into a single Windows 2000 AD domain.
Does anybody know the best route to take to achieve this?
Just an overview of the process, rather than any detailed technical info
would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.
 
There are two fundamental approaches.

First is to collapse and consolodate your existing Windows NT domains into
one. This has the advantage of making the migration to Active Directory
much simpler. It also means that you focus time and energy cleaning up your
current Windows NT environment prior to installing Active Directory. Once
you have the Windows NT environment at the place you are comfortable with
it, you can perform an upgrade-in-place. Essentially, that means upgrading
the single domain's PDC and making it the first DC in a new Active
Directory. Once done, you can install or upgrade additional DCs. This is
an approach I have taken with a number of networks and it has been very
successful.

Another approach is to upgrade the individual NT domains. When you do this,
you have the ability to build them into a forest structure as you see fit.
Once done, the objects in the domain can be migrated easily into another
single Active Directory domain and the old domains decommissioned.

There are any number of variations on these two - but the one thing I
encourage you to do is spend plenty of time planning the details.

-ds
 
Many thanks for the response Dave.
It'd be more convenient for me to take an approach similar to the second.
Can I check this:
If I add each seperate NT domain to the new forest (as seperate child
domains), do you know whether it would then be possible to migrate all the
objects to the root domain and then get the child domain controllers to
become DCs for the root domain?
 
You would have to demote the child domain DCs and then promote them
into the single domain, I believe.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
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