active directory integrated zones

[Guest]

Hi,

at our company we currently have AD DNS integrated zones in a Win2k AD
forest. Our servers are currently out of warranty so we purchased newer
machines. We plan to upgrade the domain to 2k3. I have read many articles
and best practises and it seems to be a painless upgrade. However, I have
read that win2k3 handles DNS in a different manner than win2k. I am referring
to application partitions for DNS zones. What are the steps to carry out in
order to migrate the DNS zones from AD integrated into partitions in 2k3?
Note that we will be replacing all the current 2k servers one at a time so
there will be a time frame in which both win2k and win2k3 domain controllers
will work together. I hope I stated my doubt clearly.
Thanks in advance.

Stefano Olzai

 

[James Raines]

Hello Stefano,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft and for using our Newsgroups. I have
reviewed the information you have provided this far. My understanding of
the issue is the following:

You are planning to upgrade to WIn2k3 and are wondering how to migrate you
DNS zones.

RESOLUTION:
============

When you upgrade you Win2k DNS servers to Win2k3, you simply go into the
properties of the DNS zone and change how you want the DNS zone replicated.

In Win2k the zone replicates to all DC's in the domain. Which will be the
the same when you upgrade. If you want to change this you have the options
to replicate with all DC's in the forest or to simply replicate with only
other DNS servers in the domain or forest. When you make this change it
will only replicate that parition with other DC's that have that same
partition.


Best Regards,

James Raines
Microsoft Corporation

 

[Guest]

Thanks James,

I am not sure if this would change how DNS should be configured but what we
will be doing is promote two new DCs (win2k3) into the existing forest and
then gradually demote the wink DCs. So there will not be an actual upgrade of
the OS. So I guess my question is: after I promote the first w2k3 DC into
the forest how should I configure DNS?

Thanks for your time,

Stefano Olzai

 

[James Raines]

When you introduce the WIn2k3 DC's you want to make the zones are
configured to replicate with every DC in the domain. This is what Win2k
does so this will make it consistent. Hope this helps!

Best Regards,

James Raines
Microsoft Corporation

 

[Glenn L]

Stefano,

There is no need to change anything about your DNS config.
You currently have AD integrated DNS zones.
As long as the W2K3 servers see the domain zone when you make them DCs, they
will not alter the config.
The configuration you are concerned about comes into play when you create a
new W2K3 domain that does not have DNS in it.

Again, as you bring W2K3 DCs into the fold, they will inherit the current
config. i.e. every DC in the domain holds a copy of the DNS zone.

Now you can change this if you want. There are specific scenerios where
this can be advantageous.
Generally, the larger the forest and domain deployment, the more
advantageous the new features of DNS will be to you.