Multiple Office Setup Question for Single Domain

[Norman Rosenthal]

I currently have an office in New York and have a T1 in between the 2
buildings. It is not a Point to Point it is protected via a firewall. The
2 offices are connected via a VPN between the 2 firewalls which is always
up.

My quesiton is currently there are 2 domains and due to mergers we are going
to consolidate one domain. We are going to rebuild the server in the
Remote Office and then thinking we are going to just DCPROMO and make it a
Domain Controller as well and leave all the roles in the NY office and then
setup a DNS server locally.

The IP Ranges are different in both offices to cut down traffic and also for
the VPN to work correctly.

Is this the best way? Does anyone have any other ideas or suggesstions on
how to set this up easily.

Thanks for all your help and assitance
Norman

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

I currently have an office in New York and have a T1 in between the 2
buildings. It is not a Point to Point it is protected via a firewall. The
2 offices are connected via a VPN between the 2 firewalls which is always
up.

My quesiton is currently there are 2 domains and due to mergers we are going
to consolidate one domain. We are going to rebuild the server in the
Remote Office and then thinking we are going to just DCPROMO and make it a
Domain Controller as well and leave all the roles in the NY office and then
setup a DNS server locally.

The IP Ranges are different in both offices to cut down traffic and also for
the VPN to work correctly.

Is this the best way? Does anyone have any other ideas or suggesstions on
how to set this up easily.

This looks reasonable. you can migrate all Your resources from both
domain to just one doamin, then demote DCs from "empty" domain and
rebuild machines fromt the scratch as DCs in the "base" domain in which
all resources will reside.

Then You can create two sites and connected with this sites subnets
objects, place DCs in proper sites. In each site You should have at
least one GC, all other roles can be placed in one of the sites (main
site). To avoid unnecessary name resoultion traffic You can set up DNS
on the DC in remote office.

This should work nice and smooth for you.

 

[Norman Rosenthal]

so you are saying my method will work fine. Just rebuild the server and
then run dcpromo and make another domain controller and I should be good???


If not could you elobrate a little more on exactlly what to do.

Thanks for the qucik response?

Norman

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

so you are saying my method will work fine. Just rebuild the server and
then run dcpromo and make another domain controller and I should be good???

Yes, You should be all right with it, but remember to gracefull demote
this server and domain which is not needed anymore before rebuilding it.

Quick outline of steps for your scenario:

1. migration of resources form domain 2 to domain 1
2. demotation of DCs in domain 2
3. rebuilding machines and promoting them as DC in main domain
4. creating sites and subnets, placing DCs in proper sites
5. configure replication and other things in main domain

 

[Norman Rosenthal]

I am unsure about Steps 4 and 5. Doesnt replication happen automatic with a
second DC??? ALso all items have already been moved over. What sites
and subnet do I do????

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

I am unsure about Steps 4 and 5. Doesnt replication happen automatic with a
second DC???

Yes, it does but You can do this in more controlled way

ALso all items have already been moved over.

Yes, replication is automatic - to be more accurate - replication
topology is created autmatically thorugh soe processes running in the
domain (KCC, ISTG).

Becouse in one of previous topic on this group Cary Shultz make an
excellent explanation of this topics I will point You to this thread:
http://tinyurl.com/56zjq

I hope this will explain to You idea of sites, subnets and some basic
replication topics.

What sites and subnet do I do????

You have main office and remote office connected via WAN link, ok so
propably the bet choice for You will be to create two sites:
- main
- remote

Create also subnets objects (which represents network subnets) and
connect them with proper sites - this will ensure you that users will
point local DC for logon and the replication traffic between the sites
can be controlled to not put extra overhead on Your WAN link when it is
unnecessery.