Chadwic,
Paul pretty much laid it out for you.
I will expound on this a little bit more so that you have a more clear idea
of what is going on here. There are three Naming Contexts - or Partitions -
in Active Directory: The Schema, the Configuration and the Domain. The
Schema and the Configuration NCs are replicated to each and every Domain
Controller in the entire Forest. So, if you had two Domain Controllers for
three different domains ( nkdsolutions.com, northamerica.nkdsolutions.com
and europe.nkdsolutions.com ) then each of the six Domain Controllers would
get this. Now, for the Domain NC things look a little bit differently.
Only the Domain Controllers for each domain get this information. So, the
two Domain Controllers in the nkdsolutions.com domain and only the two
Domain Controllers in the nkdsolutions.com domain would replicate this
specific Domain NC between themselves. Same goes for the two Domain
Controllers in the northamerica.nkdsolutions.com domain and for the two
Domain Controllers in the europe.nkdsolutions.com domain.
BTW, the LDAP-speak for each would be as follows:
Schema Partition: CN=schema,CN=configuration,DC=nkdsolutions,DC=com
Configuration NC: CN=configuration,DC=nkdsolutions,DC=com
Domain Partition: DC=nkdsolutions,DC=com
Domain Partition: DC=northamerica,DC=nkdsolutions,DC=com
Domain Partition: DC=europe,DC=nkdsolutions,DC=com
It is also very important to understand that Active Directory Replication
comes in two flavors: Intrasite and Intersite. Intrasite Replication is the
replication that happens between the DCs in the same Site while Intersite
Replication is the replication that happens between the DCs in different
Sites. Please note that in Intersite Replication the replication between
DCs in different Sites goes through what is called a Bridgehead Server.
Also, please understand that this topology is created by the KCC ( Knowledge
Consistency Checker ) and it's sidekick the ISTG. You can turn this off and
create the topology yourself if you so choose. You can also let it do some
things and then manually create other connection objects. Or you can let it
do it all.
An extremely important concept is that AD replication - regardless of
'flavor' - is based on an incoming connection object. So, if there is
replication between DC01 and DC02 then there are actually two connection
objects required: one from DC01 to DC02 and one from DC02 to DC01.
Do yourself a big favor and install the Support Tools on a Domain Controller
( in the lab so that you can play and mess things up without loosing your
job! ) and play around with both of the tools that Paul mentioned: ADSIEdit
and LDP. They will make things a whole lot more clear!
HTH,
Cary