AD Redundancy - Domain Controller redundancy

[Steven]

Hi,

I have two domain controllers on my domain. W2K SP3
I want to have the domain controllers configured so that
if either one is unavailable users on the network will
still be able to logon and be authenticated. so this
means that if one DC goes down users will be issued with
IP addresses and stil have dns lookups available. the
only thing they won't be able to do is to access data on
the DC thats down.
I have:
installed DHCP,DNS, GC and logon script (kixtart) on both
DC's
The DHCP scopes are configured for two different ranges.
What else do I need to configure for this sort of
redundancy.
Thanking You
Steven

 

[Paul McGuire]

You will need to point the clients dns to the second DC as an Alternate DNS
server. I am asumeing that you mean short down time. Becasue you will not
have PDC emulator or RID master ect.. if the Dc that is down holds these
roles. You may need to divide these roles. There is a KB article on
dividing theses roles up.

HTH

Paul McGuire

 

[Steven]

Hi,

Thank for the quick response, yeah I am hoping for a
short time, 4 hours or so....just in case of an unforseen
problem, users can logon to the network temporarily while
I fix the problem. Is it sufficient to have both Domain
controllers DNS entries added as primary and then
secondry? If the primary is not available then will it is
use the secondry?
Thanks
Steven

 

[Paul McGuire]

Yes if the primary can not be contacted then it will use the alternate. I
would use both ip address in the clients dns settings. This way they should
always work. IF you have forwarders in place for internet dns resolution
than the users cannot even access the internet while the dns server is down

HTH

Paul McGUire

 

[Steven]

Hi Paul,

thanks for your advice. it is greatly appreciated. Yes, I
do have DNS forwarders configured but I have them
configured on both DC DNS settings. So it appears that I
am covered. Now to test...theres only one way to find
out. I will keep you posted on my results.
Thanking You
Steven