Network Setup

[Brandon Davie]

Hi all,

I have three servers that I want to be the backbone of my network. One
server has Windows 2003 and the other two have Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
Currently, I only posses two of these servers (we are ordering the 3rd
within the next couple of days). I want to setup a solid network with little
downtime.

The applications that these servers (not necessarily all of them) will be
handling are:
Exchange 2000
Internet Security & Acceleration Server 2000
Domain & Active Directory

I *think* the best way to do this is have two servers control one domain and
the other a backup "disaster" domain. Here is what I think:

DOMAIN1:
server1: DC, ISA & Exchange
server2: DC, ISA

DOMAIN2:
server3: DC, ISA

So basically, in my head, if server1 fails then people will still be able to
login to their accounts and get internet using the second server, but not
their email (which isn't a big deal). Then once I get server1 back up, I can
set clients to use server1 as internet and they'll get their email back.

If for some reason both servers fail at the same time, then I can pull up
the 3rd server which is on a total different domain and use that for
internet routing.


Is this the best setup I can obtain? Any advice?

Thanks!
Brandon

 

[Danny Sanders]

If for some reason both servers fail at the same time, then I can pull up

the 3rd server which is on a total different domain and use that for
internet routing.

I would just put this server in the same domain.

If as you say, "both servers fail at the same time, then I can pull up the
3rd server which is on a totally different domain",

The fact that it is on a different domain will cause you to first remove the
users from the failed domain, add them to the new domain, and deal with
basically setting up your users from scratch, which you will have to do
again when you recreate the original domain and you are ready to move back.

If for some chance all three DCs fail at the same time (Highly un likely),
it would still be less work to just rebuild the domain from backups and
don't worry about removing and adding them to a "backup" domain, then
removing them from the "backup" domain and adding them to the final domain..

hth
DDS W 2k MVP MCSE