Creating a "true" AD lab replica

[Aaron Melius]

I'm creating a lab for a NDS to AD migration. Domains and
infrastructure are in place. I now need to copy the
existing production AD structure to the lab. I've had
spotty results with the LDIFDE switches. Any suggestions?

 

[Simon Geary]

One ugly but effective tactic is to install a new DC in your production
forest root domain and then pull the plug on it and take it to your lab.
Once their you can seize the FSMO roles and begin the testing. To get away
with this you would need to do a metadata cleanup of the old DC from your
production network which is where the ugly part comes in. Should work OK
though.

 

[Trust No One®]

One ugly but effective tactic is to install a new DC in your
production forest root domain and then pull the plug on it and take
it to your lab. Once their you can seize the FSMO roles and begin the
testing. To get away with this you would need to do a metadata
cleanup of the old DC from your production network which is where the
ugly part comes in. Should work OK though.

Why not take an image of the new DC using say Norton Ghost and burn it to
CD? You would then be able to remove the new DC gracefully using DCPROMO,
and load the image onto a computer in the lab.

Best Wishes

 

[Joshua Astete]

I agree with the Ghost recommendation. We actually use this path for our
lab work. No issues.