Merging AD under W2003

[Fred]

My company has been acquired by a bigger organisation - we are ready to
implement W2003/Exchange 2003 but our new owners are not quite ready yet
(still NT4/Exch5.5). We will *eventually* be fully integrated as a single
organisation - but don't really want this to slow down our own
implementation as we have risks/costs in not doing so asap. Could someone
please advise (at a high level !!):

1) Under W2003 AD is it now possible to merge ADs from 2 orgs? (everything
I've seen so far looks like it still requires a messy migration).

2) If we went ahead in the short term, and then migrated/merged then how
well does this work in practice - does it leave things seamless like it was
one item in the beginning or does it leave it like two things glued
together? If we had just one domain and then they implemented just one
domain then is it possible to merge/migrate the two just to leave one?

3) Not really this group, but will the Exchange complicate things?

4) Any good white papers etc. relating to this sort of thing?

I'm just trying to get my head around the issues we face ahead, which will
allow us to decide whether to wait or to proceed. TIA,

Fred

 

[Herb Martin]

My company has been acquired by a bigger organisation - we are ready to
implement W2003/Exchange 2003 but our new owners are not quite ready yet
(still NT4/Exch5.5). We will *eventually* be fully integrated as a single
organisation - but don't really want this to slow down our own
implementation as we have risks/costs in not doing so asap. Could someone
please advise (at a high level !!):

1) Under W2003 AD is it now possible to merge ADs from 2 orgs? (everything
I've seen so far looks like it still requires a messy migration).

Not really. Never fully.

There IS the new Forest Trusts. Manual but easy
to trust an entire Forest of DOMAINS from another
Forest of Domains.

It requires both Forests at the highest functional level,
Win2003 Forest Functional Level which means ONLY
Win2003 DCs.

2) If we went ahead in the short term, and then migrated/merged then how
well does this work in practice - does it leave things seamless like it was
one item in the beginning or does it leave it like two things glued
together? If we had just one domain and then they implemented just one
domain then is it possible to merge/migrate the two just to leave one?

Pretty well. It works. It's a nuisance.

ADMTv2.

3) Not really this group, but will the Exchange complicate things?

A little perhaps, probably not much. Exchange can
accept email for multiple DNS names.

4) Any good white papers etc. relating to this sort of thing?

I don't know -- surely there are so search Google or
wait for someone else to post them, Google:

[ forest trusts 2003 site:microsoft.com ]

[ merging | migrating domains 2000 | 2003 site:microsoft.com ]

Substitute "microsoft:" (with the COLON to search "web-wide
Microsoft resource pages."

I'm just trying to get my head around the issues we face ahead, which will
allow us to decide whether to wait or to proceed. TIA,