Diference between 2003 and 2000 AD

[George]

We are in process of upgrading from NT and have a choice of 2003 and 2000.
What would be a difference between these two and what impact will it have to
run some DC as 2003 and some as 2000?

thanks, George

 

[Jim Singh]

The decesion to whether deploy 2k or 2k3 comes down to how big your
enterprise is and how you are going to organise it i.e groups, ou, sites
etc. Although 2k and 2k3 are pretty much similar; there are some good
changes made in 2k3. The main difference between w2k and w2k3 are:
- 2k has a restriction on groups; i.e. you can only have 5000 users per
group. While in 2k3 this has been elimiated.
- 2k3 has site restrictions; i.e. the no. of sites that you can make in 2k
is inversly proportional to the no. of domain you have. the more the
domains, the less the site you can have. While in 2k3 this has also been
eliminated.
- 2k3 has a better KCC algorithm
- 2k3 has conditional forwarding, which enables you to have domain name
based DNS redirection. Which saves query - response time and help eleviate
DNS resolution problems.
- 2k3 has stub zone, which agian helps in eleviating the DNS resolution
problems but acting as an agent that keeps the info of svr records.
- 2k3 has universal group caching - this you can use if you have branch
sites, where you can enable this instead of having a GC ( which requires
replication ).
- Better IIS
These are just some of the main chance in 2k3. you can read more about 2k3
on the MS site.

-Jim

 

[George]

So, if we go with 2003 AD, can we keep some DCs with 2000 ? Also, would our
2000 Advanced member servers be affected at all?

Thank you, George

 

[Jim Singh]

Yes you can keep the w2k DC in the w2k3 forest, but for that you need to be
at either "windows 2000 mixed" or "w2k native" mode functional level. In
another words, you would not be able to go to "w2k3 native mode" function
level which enables additional features in w2k3 i.e. domain controller
rename, logon timestamp attribute updated and replicated, User password
support on the InetOrgPerson objectClass, Constrained delegation, you can
redirect the Users and Computers containers. The memeber servers will not
be affected as they still can authenticate etc.

-Jim

 

[Kevin Buchanan]

Been there done that...

My best advice: Test before you upgrade - particularly with GPO policies!
Our upgrade was very smooth, but we tested for about 6 weeks prior to our
upgrade.

If you are upgrading your existing hardware - make sure it is 2000 or 2k3
compliant. We are running 2k3 on all DC and most app servers. IMHO, it is
a big improvement over 2k.

-KB