AD sites with no DCs question

[James]

Hi,

I am working on a fairly simple 2003 AD design. There are 4 physical sites
and this design will have 2 DC's at the central site. There will be no DC's
at the remote sites, because the number of users versus the WAN bandwidth
and fault tolerance of the WAN does not warrant it.
Its possible that I would want to use software distribution with DFS.
Therefore I will create 4 AD sites, and associate them with the correct
subnets. Each physical site will have a DFS target server (member). In the
event that software distribution is not used and therefore DFS not being
required in this case, I was wondering what the justification would be for
creating four AD sites rather than one. The only reasons I can think of are:

1. site policies
2. DFS target selection

Thanks,

James

 

[Paul Bergson]

Sites are a DC thing and how replication occurs. If you are going to have
only 1 location with dc's then you should have only 1 site.

 

[James]

Although that is their main purpose. they are not just for replication, some
services are site aware, such as DFS. If I don't define sites for DFS
servers then clients will not know which DFS target to use. My question
really is what other services are site aware, if any.

James

 

[Glenn L]

Exhange server.
SMS
MOM
Terminal services Licensing.
may be others............

 

[Matt Anderson]

Sites are a DC thing and how replication occurs. If you are going to have
only 1 location with dc's then you should have only 1 site.

I disagree.

Matt
MCT, MCSE

 

[Matt Anderson]

Sites are a DC thing and how replication occurs. If you are going to have
only 1 location with dc's then you should have only 1 site.

--

Paul Bergson MCT, MCSE, MCSA, CNE, CNA, CCA

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

But at least your an actual MCT because I remember seeing posts by you in
private.cafe : ). I always wonder how many jokers just put that after their
name when posting in .public.

Matt
MCT, MCSE

 

[James]

Thanks for the info Glenn.

How does exchange use sites? There will be a clustered exchange 2003 setup
as well, the plan is to host this at the central site.

James