Does Every Site Have to have a DC?

[Alan Coleman]

I have a few sites that I want to add NAS servers to for file serving,
however I don't have any DCs that go to these sites, does a site have to
have a DC in order to be treated as a separate site under Sites and Services
or can I add new sites and they still authenticate off of the "closest" site
with a DC in it?

 

[Herb Martin]

In general they should but recognize that you create
both Sites and DCs to it isn't "do they have" but rather
"did you do it that way?"

There is almost no reason for a site unless there is
a DC in that location -- since sites are mostly about
controlling replication and authentication.

There are occasionally some minor or unusual reasons
for DC-less sites and there is nothing technically wrong
with doing it.

I have a few sites that I want to add NAS servers to for file serving,
however I don't have any DCs that go to these sites, does a site have to
have a DC in order to be treated as a separate site under Sites and Services

No.

or can I add new sites and they still authenticate off of the "closest" site
with a DC in it?

Yes.

But the question arises,
"Why are you making sites without a DC?"

(You may have a reason but recognize that access
to domain resources -- including authenticating for a
NAS client -- will fail if the link to the DCs are down.)


[/QUOTE]

 

[Jimmy Andersson [MVP]]

DFS is a good reason for having sites without DCs.

Regards,
/Jimmy

 

[Herb Martin]

DFS is a good reason for having sites without DCs.

Yes, that is one of the very few technical exceptions.

However, if you require access to the DFS which is
typically a domain resources, then it is a poor practice
to have DFS server(s) without a DC to authenticate
locally.

And of course, given that there is a DFS server it
costs nothing and is little trouble to put the DC on
the same server (at worst.) Same for DNS.

 

[Gary Simmons]

Hi...

However, you can create sites in order to provide locational data, for
example Dfs hosts.. The client will use the site model to locate a
Dfs host closest to it..

Also the printer location mechanism uses the Site model too..

So the locallity of a DC is not neccessarliy a pre-req for a Site..

Cheerio