Active Directory: Remote Locations

[Fao, Sean]

Hell all,

All my AD setups so far have been fairly small and I haven't yet had to
set up any AD controllers that were physically located in two different
locations. The company I work for has just purchased a new building and
will now require me to configure a remote server, which will be
connected over the Internet.

Both the headquarters and branch office have connections to the Internet
(but not point to point). I imagine some form of VPN needs to be
established between the two locations so that the branch office can sync
with the headquarters and vice versa. I've searched Microsoft's
knowledge base for articles on configuring this type of network; but,
I'm not having much luck.

The headquarters is running Windows 2000 AD and cannot yet be upgraded
because of financial issues. The branch office will be running Windows
2003 Server.

I'll continue to search the knowledge bases for but any information that
I can use to get me started would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in
advance,

Sean

 

[Matjaz Ladava [MVP]]

Hi Fao,

First you have to setup a VPN connection between your offices. I would
suggest you to get a hardware VPN to VPN solution which will take care of
connecting your offices.
After you have a fully routed network between your offices, you will have to
setup sites in AD. you do this by using AD Sites and Services snapin. Assign
a subnet object to each site. After that you will have to install a DC in
remote office. You use normally dcpromo procedure for this. The server will
be placed in right site in as because of the subnet object assigned to its
site.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/activedirectory/adsites.asp

Because you are planning to use Windows Server 2003 in 2000 network you will
first have to extend AD schema to support Windows Server 2003 as Domain
Controller.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;325379

--

Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSA, MCSE, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP Windows Server - Active Directory
(e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)

 

[Fao, Sean]

Hi Fao,

First you have to setup a VPN connection between your offices. I would
suggest you to get a hardware VPN to VPN solution which will take care of
connecting your offices.
After you have a fully routed network between your offices, you will have to
setup sites in AD. you do this by using AD Sites and Services snapin. Assign
a subnet object to each site. After that you will have to install a DC in
remote office. You use normally dcpromo procedure for this. The server will
be placed in right site in as because of the subnet object assigned to its
site.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/activedirectory/adsites.asp

Because you are planning to use Windows Server 2003 in 2000 network you will
first have to extend AD schema to support Windows Server 2003 as Domain
Controller.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;325379

I've been at school all day so I haven't had a chance to get to this
yet. I'm glad to see that I'm at least on the right track, though. I
already have a VPN configured between the two buildings and I was
somewhat on track with what I needed to do with Windows.

Thank you very much and I'll let you know if I have any
questions/concerns...

Sean