Using Sites in Active Directory

[Guest]

I am trying to decide if I should remove a remote site in my AD domain. I
have no other use for a DC in that office other than to authenticate users.

We will be upgrading the Internet pipe from 512K to 6Mbps this afternoon
which I thought would be fast enough for the 3 PCs in that remote location to
authenticate across the Internet to our main office... however I know it is
useful to setup multiple sites when the locations are not well connected to
increase efficiency...

For this reason it might be worth leaving the DC here just for loging on..

In the corporate office we use a fractional T1 at 768K for the Internet...
we do own the whole T1, however half is used for telephones.

At this time I do not have another use for the remote DC... it is fairly new
but has IDE hard drives in it...

Should I keep the sites the way they are, consolidate to one site, or leave
it for now and consolidate when the server here could definately be used...

Puzzled...

Derek

 

[Ryan Hanisco]

Derek,

For just three machines and that fast of a connection, you don't really need
a DC there though it is nice to have the local storage and faster access to
resources.

Since it is already there, you can easily declare its own site and manage
replication to it. Right now, if everything is in the same site, some of
the workstations at your main office will be authenticating across the WAN
to your remote. This alone is enough for you to want to declare it another
site.

 

[Dan]

You need to keep a DC in site only when the login traffic is more than
replication traffic or you have an unreliable link.
If you have more than 2 Sites configured now, remove the DC and leave the
Site as it is. This will help to control login traffic. All the login
traffic will be directed to a DC in a site which is well connected.

Dan